The Philippines is exhausting possible measures to ensure that food—particularly imported ones—being sold in the local market is safe for consumption.
The latest of the government’s action in securing Filipinos’ health is a series of measures imposed against meat imports coming from Brazil.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol on July 20 ordered the dispatch of a technical team that would investigate Brazilian meat establishments exporting meat to the country.
This comes after he ordered the temporary ban on all meat imports from Brazil after salmonella was detected in some of the shipments from the Latin American country.
“In the meantime that [we] are conducting tests, we can temporarily stop the importation from Brazil and then clear them [meat-packing plants] one by one,” Piñol told reporters in an interview on July 20.
“It will be a total ban of all Brazilian companies. But we will clear them one by one as we conduct the validation,” Piñol added.
The Department of Agriculture’s (DA) technical team would physically inspect and investigate all accredited Brazilian foreign meat establishments (FMEs) approved to export meat and meat products to the Philippines.
“They will check the facilities and then, as soon as they are cleared, we will lift their bans one by one,” Piñol said.
Interventions
The government’s latest intervention comes almost four months after Brazil’s “rotten meat scandal” broke and made headlines in March.
In that month, the government had subjected all meat imports from Brazil to mandatory inspection and laboratory tests to ensure that these are safe for consumption.
This was done after Brazil’s federal police raided companies that allegedly bribed government inspectors to allow the shipment of rotten meat and meat tainted with salmonella.
Foreign news reports indicated 21 meat-packing plants were targeted by the police in an operation dubbed as “Operation Weak Flesh,” while three meat-packing plants have been shut down by the Brazilian government.
A news wire report revealed that BRF, the world’s biggest poultry exporter, and JBS, the world’s top beef producer, were part of the dozens of firms targeted in the police probe. However, both companies have denied any wrongdoing and assured consumers that their products meet rigorous quarantine standards, the report added.
The scandal forced major buyers of Brazilian meat to either suspend imports or impose more restrictions on shipments.
Earlier this month, the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS), an attached agency of the DA, found out that nearly 500 kilograms of imported meat from Brazil tested positive for salmonella.
Trade-off
The agriculture chief is cognizant that imposing a blanket ban on Brazil would affect Manila’s meat trade, as the South American country is one of the country’s major sources of meat. Brazil accounts for 6 percent of the Philippines’s annual meat imports.
“We cannot do anything about it. We have to make sure that our consumers are protected more than anything else,” Piñol said.
“Trade can always resume the moment things are cleared. Our first and foremost priority would be the safety of our consumers,” Piñol added.
Meat Importers and Traders Association (Mita) President Jesus C. Cham told the BusinessMirror that the ban could result in higher prices of meat and meat products in the local market due to fewer sources of imports.
“It will have a huge impact. For [mechanically deboned meat], this negates the lifting of the ban on Dutch poultry,” Cham said in an e-mail.
“The DA should immediately lift the poultry ban on other European Union countries in order to increase the supply. For beef, I’m afraid there are very few alternatives,” he added.
Cham said the government should expedite its investigation in order to avert any spikes in the prices of meat in the local market.
“It is unfortunate that the DA has decided to ban Brazil until the plants are inspected. Brazil is an important source of meat for the Philippines,” he said.
“To minimize the impact, we urge the DA to inspect the plants expeditiously, at the same time, adhering to the standards of the international Codex Alimentarius Commission, of which the Philippines is a member,” he added.
‘Zero-tolerance’
The Mita president has urged the DA to reconsider its zero-tolerance policy on salmonella, saying that the tests conducted by the government on meat imports is not in accordance with the Codex Alimentarius.
Under MC9-2008-5, fresh meat and offals, chilled meat and offals, frozen meat and offals and chilled/frozen comminuted meat/offals are classified under cases 1 and 10.
According to the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF), cases 1 of raw meat for total plate count (TPC) include: carcass meat before chilling, chilled carcass meat, chilled edible offal, frozen carcass meat, frozen boneless meat, frozen comminuted meat and frozen edible offal.
Meanwhile, case 10 is used to measure the presence of salmonella in cooked poultry meat, according to ICMSF. And case 4 is for the test of E. coli in fresh and frozen fish.
“Obviously it is physically impossible for meat and offal to be both raw and cooked at the same time. It has to be one or the other. As well, chicken MDM [mechanically deboned meat] is not fish,” Cham said in a letter addressed to NMIS Executive Director Ernesto S. Gonzales dated July 13.
“Hence, we respectfully request that MC9-2008-5 be withdrawn and reissued to adhere to Codex Aimentarius Commission recommendations. As a logical consequence, we request that the zero-tolerance policy on salmonella on raw meat be discontinued,” Cham added in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the BusinessMirror.
Citing the reasons above, Cham said it is wrong for the Philippines to ban Brazil imports solely on the basis of salmonella.
“Excessive bacteria would be an acceptable justification, provided that their products consistently exceeded the limits,” he said. “The Philippines is applying the wrong tests and consequently arriving at the wrong conclusions and policy.”
Cham added that salmonella in raw meat is not a concern as all bacteria found in raw meat would be killed by cooking, especially when very well done, like what Filipinos usually do.
“Salmonella in fully cooked ready-to-eat processed meat is dangerous. But you can see from the international standards it is not a concern in raw meat,” he said.
“The concern in raw meat is the total bacteria population or Aerobic Plate Count, also referred to as TPC. As long as TPC is within limits then the meat is fit for human consumption. Meaning, it is fit for cooking, not necessarily safe if eaten raw or half-cooked,” he added.
Duty-bound
Sought for comment, Piñol maintained the efficacy of the government’s zero-tolerance policy, reiterating that they are duty-bound to ensure that the meat being sold and eaten by Filipinos are safe.
“If you could remember when we exported oysters that were reportedly positive with salmonella, the US immediately banned us. Why are we going to be lenient when they are the ones violating our safety provisions?” he said.
“They are so strict when we violate their standards and then we are going to be lax on them? I think that’s unfair. We are talking here about the health of Filipinos,” he added.
“I can understand the concern of the traders, it’s business for them. But they have to understand our position as well, because we are looking after the food safety of our Filipino consumers,” Piñol added.
However, the agriculture chief said he is open in discussing the policy with the meat industry stakeholders.
“While we have to make a policy on that, we just cannot implement what they are recommending. We have to study it, we just cannot change policies overnight,” Piñol said. “We have to call industry stakeholders again and discuss this with them.”
‘It is safe’
In a communication to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Brazil assured fellow member-countries that it is taking steps to correct the anomalies revealed in the March rotten-meat scandal.
One of which is updating its Sanitary Inspection Regulation with the objective “to fight economic fraud and improve food safety”.
“The new regulation establishes severe penalties for irregularities ranging from heavy fines to losing of the federal inspection approval seal [SIF], in case of persisted noncompliances,” Brazil said during a recent meeting of the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Committee this month.
Brazil, through its Ministry of Agriculture, also established the “compliance program”, which aims to enhance the mechanism in preventing and correcting business misconduct.
“Private companies in the agribusiness sector may enroll in the program and be certified with the Agro+Integridade seal,” it said.
During the meeting, Brazil also emphasized that the irregularities found in the involved companies were related to economic fraud and did not compromised the country’s food safety on meat sold locally and exported abroad.
“We therefore remain confident that our sanitary controls are robust and trustworthy, and we thank our trade partners that have expressed confidence in our system by keeping their markets open to our animal products,” Brazil said.
“It should be emphasized that the identified nonconformities did not pose a risk to consumers’ health nor put in question the efficiency of the control systems. The lessons learned in this case were useful in the process of updating and improving our inspection regulation,” Brazil added.
Based on the list available on the NMIS web site, as of September 16, 2016, there are about 56 accredited Brazil-based FMEs approved to export meat and meat products into the Philippines.
However, the document showed that the validity of the accreditation of all 56 FMEs in Brazil are “for revalidation”.
Some of the accredited Brazil-based FMEs include JBS S/A and BRF S.A., the companies involved in the South American country’s rotten-meat scandal.
Data obtained from the Bureau of Animal Industry showed that the Philippines imported 20,716.616 metric tons (MT) of meat and meat products from Brazil from January to May. Beef imports accounted for 31.62 percent, or 6,551.453 MT, BAI data showed.
Chicken imports accounted for more than half of the meat and meat products purchased from Brazil, or about 62.64 percent. The Philippines imported 12,977.167 MT of chicken meat and products from Brazil during the five-month period.
In 2016 Brazil exported a total of 55,581.853 MT of meat and meat products to the Philippines. The figure was 5.86 percent higher than the 52,505.429 MT recorded in 2015.
Beef accounted for 33.3 percent of meat purchases from Brazil. Government data showed that beef imports reached 18,524.966 MT, 69.04 percent higher than the 2015 record of 10,959.168 MT.
More than half of the country’s meat imports from Brazil were MDM of chicken. Chicken MDM imports last year reached 30,557.036 MT, 18 percent lower than the 37,314.374 MT posted in 2015.