April 16, 2004

Farmbros Takes Lead In Promoting Chicken Safety In China

Fambros Group, a major meat supplier of KFC's chain restaurants in China, has issued a guarantee declaration on its product safety, asking for joint efforts within the industry to get chicken back on the menu in the wake of the nation's bird flu outbreak.

The Shandong-based company vowed, in a white paper on bird food safety control, that it would strictly follow food processing procedures, adhere to high standards of hygiene and never use hormones during its production.
 
Although the bird flu epidemic has subsided in China, company officials said food safety should be further stressed to recreate a favourable environment for the industry to develop.
 
"The bird flu outbreak posed a huge threat to the food industry, which also taught the bird processing industry an important lesson," said Luo Yunbo, director of China Agricultural University's food institute.
 
Companies should learn from the crisis that people will not stop eating chicken, but they will become very picky when selecting products, he said.
 
Experts say people will not return to their old chicken ways for a long time, which means any under-par products will affect people's confidence in the whole industry.
 
China's rapid-growing chicken processing industry took a battering during the January to March epidemic. Nearly 9 million birds were slaughtered.
 
A total of 49 areas in 16 Chinese regions had been under quarantine.
 
By March 16, when China declared that it was free of the disease, 48 countries and regions had adopted prohibitive or restrictive measures against Chinese poultry products.
 
According to Fambros officials, the chicken processing industry has witnessed a rapid growth in recent years. They say the industry could expand by 10 per cent annually in the next few years.
 
So far, 21 countries have declared that they will resume or partially resume their poultry imports, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
 
Japan, the largest importer of Chinese poultry products, announced last week that it has decided to resume imports of heat-treated poultry products. The ban was imposed in late January.
 
Top suppliers in China will be allowed to ship heat-treated poultry products from 35 plants that Japan has checked and says meets its sanitary standards.
 
Qin Hua, vice-president of the company, said epidemic prevention should never be relaxed to safeguard the healthy development of the bird food industry.
 
New cases of bird flu were reported again in Canada last week. Canadian officials ordered the slaughter of some 19 million chickens and turkeys in British Columbia to try to stop the spread of the highly contagious disease.
 
That further illustrated that prevention is a long-term task for the industry, experts said.
 
Wang Yue, an official with KFC, attributed the fast food restaurant's success in overcoming the crisis to the great efforts of its meat suppliers in guaranteeing safe products. He said Fambros led the industry in setting the high standards.
 
Liu Xuejing, president of the company, said he expected a major industry reshuffle to take place more quickly thanks to the bird flu scare.
 
The Fambros Group is one of the largest chicken processing companies in China. It produces 200,000 tons of chicken each year, with total assets reaching 2 billion yuan (US$240 million).