SÃO PAULO, Brazil—Brasilia will export a record volume of chicken meat and pork to Manila this year, cementing Brazil’s position as one of the Philippines’s top suppliers of meat products.
The Brazilian Animal Protein Association (Associação Brasileira de Proteína Animal or ABPA) said Brazil is on track this year to shatter the volume of chicken meat and pork it exported to the Philippines in 2021.
In the first half of 2022, Brazil’s pork exports to the Philippines rose by 277.7 percent to 41,863 MT from 11,083 MT in the same period of last year, based on ABPA data.
ABPA data showed that Brazil’s pork exports to the Philippines from January to June already surpassed its total pork exports for the entire 2021 of 33,347 MT.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s chicken meat exports to the Philippines in the first half rose by 43.7 percent year-on-year to 116,804 MT from 81,259 MT, based on ABPA data.
“For sure,” ABPA Market Director Luis Rua told Filipino reporters here, when asked if Brazil’s chicken meat exports to the Philippines this year would surpass last year’s full-year volume.
“I believe in the next months, we will keep the same quantities [of pork exports to the Philippines]. And of course it will depend if we are ready to offer the products that you want. You can just count on us,” Rua added.
ABPA attributed the increase in Brazil’s chicken meat and pork exports to the strong demand for mechanically deboned meat (MDM) by Philippine meat processors and the country’s need for pork products amid the consequences of African swine fever (ASF).
Growing exponentially
Brazil’s chicken meat and pork exports to the Philippines have been constantly growing in recent years, making the country one of its most important markets in the Asian region.
Last year, Brazil’s chicken meat exports to the Philippines rose by 180.88 percent on an annual basis to 168,186 MT, making the country its seventh-biggest market of chicken meat in the world.
Brazil’s pork exports to the Philippines last year surged to 33,475 MT from just 7,942 MT, based on ABPA data. The Philippines became Brazil’s eighth-largest destination of pork exports in the world.
“The Philippines is the country that is increasing the most,” Rua said.
“As with other Asian countries, rates of urbanization and income are increasing in a faster way than the rest of the world. Of course, we look to this trend to our country and also to other countries in the region as opportunities to develop this kind of partnership in providing the product [that you need],” Rua added.
Rua pointed out that the market profile of meat importers in the Philippines is robust as there are players that sell directly to the retail level while others are meat processors.
“We see a very good opportunity [in the Philippines] and we are ready to help,” he said.
ABPA President Ricardo Santin said Philippine companies now treat Brazil as a major source of chicken meat and pork products despite the long distance between the two countries.
“Philippine companies are trying to diversify their suppliers. They need the best. Maybe in the past they tried to go to Brazil but it’s so far,” Santin said in a press conference on the sidelines of the SIAVS 2022, Brazil’s biggest poultry and pork event.
“African swine fever and avian influenza are unfortunately in Asia and maybe it changed their mind and discussed it. It’s good to have good relations with Brazil, and now the reality is proving that Brazil can provide [the meat products] and can be a partner,” Santin added.
Brazil has been one of the key markets of local meat processors for chicken MDM, a critical raw material in their manufacturing, amid limited European supply of the product due to bird flu-induced import bans imposed by the government.
Brazil is the Philippines’s top supplier of chicken meat and the third-biggest supplier of pork products, according to Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) data.
Image credits: Nonoy Lacza