April 23, 2007

Creekstone Farms readies beef shipment for export to South Korea

US beef producer Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC is preparing a 10,000-pound air shipment of beef for export to South Korea, which has rejected all previous shipments since it eased its ban on US beef last year, a company official said Thursday (Apr 19).

Creekstone Senior Vice President Kevin Pentz told Dow Jones Newswires that he expects the shipment to arrive in South Korea Monday morning.

South Korea, once a major buyer of US beef, banned imports in December 2003 after the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, was found here. South Korea eased that ban in September 2006 to allow imports of only boneless cuts of US beef.

Creekstone was one of three US companies to have an entire shipment of beef rejected last year because small bone or cartilage fragments were found. Since then South Korea has changed its policy to allow import inspectors to reject a single box of beef rather than an entire shipment if a problem is found.

Pentz said "We're confident that there will not be any issues with the product."

US Department of Agriculture officials continue to stress their desire to see US beef exports flowing to South Korea again, but the emphasis now is on getting the country to agree to accept a much wider variety of imports.

USDA Secretary Mike Johanns told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview last week that he expects South Korea to eventually embrace international mad cow safety standards that would allow for substantially more trade, including bone-in beef products from the US.

Bone-in products--primarily short ribs--were a very profitable US export to South Korea before the country banned US beef in 2003, Pentz said in a previous interview. The Creekstone shipment to South Korea will contain only boneless products because of current restrictions.