THE country’s meat imports in the first two months of the year grew by more than a fifth to 106,884.521 metric tons (MT) on the back of the continuous increase in demand for frozen meat and processed meat products.
Latest data from the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) showed that meat imports during the January-to-February period was 23.86 percent higher than the 86,293.071 MT recorded in the same period last year.
“It does appear that the general trend of import is up. I suppose the consumers’ acceptance of frozen meat continues to go up. This is seen all over the world,” Meat Importers and Traders Association President Jesus C. Cham told the BusinessMirror.
Cham said the growing demand for frozen meat by consumers could be driven by the improvement in their purchasing power as they had more disposable income due to the tax exemptions stipulated in the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law.
“The latest SWS [Social Weather Station] survey shows that there are less poor and food-poor people. Perhaps an improving economy and the increase in purchasing power are behind this,” he added.
BAI Assistant Director Simeon S. Amurao Jr. said meat imports are steadily increasing due to the growing need of meat processors for “cheap” raw materials from abroad. This in turn, Amurao added, is used by meat processors to produce “affordable” processed meat products such as hot dogs.
“There’s really a trend of increasing meat importation, particularly for raw materials, needed by meat processors to sustain their businesses,” Amurao told the BusinessMirror.
“There is a lot of demand for processed-meat products today, especially from the masses. For example they would purchase hot dogs and pork ‘tocino’ sold in wet markets, which are cheaper and produced by meat processors, even at smaller quantities, because they are affordable,” he added.
Of the country’s total meat purchase in the two-month period, almost half, or about 46.87 percent, were pork.
Pork imports during the reference period rose by 24.28 percent to 50,100.395 MT, from the previous year’s 40,313.422 MT.
Cham said international pork prices were generally “low,” allowing importers and traders to import more.
The country’s chicken imports during the two-month period rose by nearly 27 percent to 34,040.929 MT, from 26,876.097 MT recorded a year ago. Chicken meat accounted for 31.85 percent of the country’s total meat imports.
Cham and Amurao pointed to the increase in inward shipments of mechanically deboned meat (MDM) as the main driver for the expansion of chicken meat imports during the two-month period. Purchases of imported chicken MDM rose by 27.33 percent to 25,949.233 MT, from the previous year’s 20,380.019 MT.
Used in manufacturing chicken nuggets and hot dogs, chicken MDM accounted for 76.23 percent of total chicken meat imports during the period.
Data from the BAI also showed that the purchases of imported buffalo meat rose by 84.54 percent to 6,974.402 MT from 3,779.36 MT recorded a year ago.
Amurao said the increase in buffalo meat imports is “surprising” and could mean that meat processors are increasingly shipping corned beef and other processed meat products to other countries.
The BAI noted that that beef imports during the two-month period grew by 3.55 percent to 15,512.176 MT, from 15,126.382 MT recorded a year ago.
Turkey-meat imports during the January-to-February period posted the fastest increase among all imported meat products at 116.79 percent.
Purchases of imported turkey meat reached 173.998 MT, from the previous year’s
80.261 MT.
Lamb-meat imports declined by 27.02 percent to 82.621 MT, from 113.206 MT recorded a year ago, according to the BAI.
Last year, meat imports went up by nearly 7 percent to a record-high volume of 691,462.564 MT. Data from the BAI showed that purchases of imported meat in 2017 surpassed the 646,503.7 MT recorded in 2016.
BAI data indicated that bulk of the country’s meat imports were pork, accounting for about 44.18 percent of the total volume purchased last year.
Pork imports in 2017 posted the highest increment, expanding by 10.65 percent to 305,479.806 MT, from the 2016 record of 276,066.999 MT.