February 6, 2004

No CPF Chicken Import Cutbacks For Tesco Despite Bird Flu Scare

The British supermarket chain Tesco Plc will continue to import chickens from Charoen Pokphand Foods Plc (CPF), their orders unmoved by the recent bird flu outbreaks in Thailand.  

Tesco imported chickens amount up to five billion baht a year from CPF, and lately has not cut back, said Sunthorn Arunanondchai, chairman of Ek-Chai Distribution System.

The Charoen Pokphand Group is a minority shareholder of Ek-Chai Distribution System Co, which operates the Tesco Lotus hypermarket chain in Thailand. Tesco is the major shareholder.

According to Mr Sunthorn, 95% of the chicken exported to European countries consists of frozen cooked chicken products, while the remaining 5% is frozen raw chicken.

European countries have recently stopped importing frozen raw chicken from Thailand, but the import volume of frozen cooked chicken remains intact.

Thailand's annual chicken exports are estimated to be worth more than 50 billion baht. Half of all exports are sent to Japan and 40% to countries in the European Union, with the rest going to a variety of destinations.

In a bid to boost consumer confidence in the safety of its chicken meat and eggs, Ek-Chai Distribution System yesterday opened up its 133-rai distribution centre in Ayutthaya's Wang Noi district to the media and senior officials from the Public Health Ministry.

"We want to say to our consumers that we are a national retail chain and chicken products sold at Tesco Lotus megastores are all safe to eat," said Darren Blackhurst, director and senior executive vice-president for commercial affairs and trading.

Mr Blackhurst said that since the bird flu outbreak, Ek-Chai representatives had been meeting daily with vendors' representatives and government agencies in an attempt to outline ways to restore consumer confidence in chicken products.

However, he believed it would take several months to bring confidence back to normal levels.

Orawan Sirichottirat, general manager for media relations and corporate affairs, said that the company is committed to collaborating with the government's confidence boosting efforts.

However, executives did not release details of plans to enhance consumer confidence at the 55 Tesco Lotus stores.