Meat processors eye 600M regional consumers

Felix Tiukinhoy (left) and Jerome Ong, president and vice president of the Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. respectively, discuss issues regarding the industry. (CDN PHOTO/CHOY ROMANO)

The Philippine Association of  Meat Processors, Inc. (Pampi) will try to get a share of the 600 million consumer market in the ten Asean member countries.

All the 48 members of Pampi are now getting ready for the integration that’s set to happen next year, said newly re-elected Pampi president Felix O. Tiukinhoy Jr. during a forum on Wednesday.

“We are getting ready because once it happens, there are at least 600 million consumers that we can tap. We hope, however, that we’ll get more support from the government,” said Tiukinhoy, who is also the president of Virginia Foods Inc.

One area that the government can really help  is the establishment of AAA abattoirs and modern fabrication floors and laboratories as well as refrigerated holding rooms.

These facilities will allow meat processors to get supplies locally and operate at lower cost; thus improve competitiveness, he said.

Getting the supplies locally will be more favorable to the local meat processors and create another sector in the industry which will create more jobs, said Pampi vice president Jerome D. Ong, who is also president of CDO Foodsphere Inc.

“If we source locally, we save on tariff, storage facilities, transportation cost, and the more we get to create jobs for the local farmers,” said Ong.
Tiukinhoy said that government can partner with private sectors like the farmers who can process their meat.

“What they (farmers) do know is just sell their produce live. But they can actually process it, we only need certain parts. We don’t need the head which they can sell separately,” Tiukinhoy said.

At present, local meat processors are importing most of their meat to be processed from internationally accredited suppliers in North America, Europe, United States of America (USA), and Canada.

“In 2012, we imported 394,526 metric tons of meat worth P40 billion including pork (151,084 metric tons), chicken (134,768 metric tons) and high volume of beef and buffalo meats.”

He added that should local farmers cater to the pork and chicken requirement alone, this could mean more income and more jobs for the country.

Pampi members are serving 90 percent of the domestic demand while the remaining 10 percent are from the backyard processors of select processed meat products like tocino and chorizo.

In Cebu, there are eight meat processing firms including Virginia Foods Inc.; Sunpride Foods Inc.; King’s Quality Foods; and Lami Food Products Corp.