Just over three years ago China had its first outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF). At the start of 2019, there was a large surge in Chinese import demand for protein as the market looked to fill the gap left by the decline in pork production. International beef and pork markets both benefitted from this demand. Over the last 12 months, Chinese pork production has been recovering which has reduced demand for imported pork.

However, despite any recovery in the pig herd, there could now be a new protein gap emerging – at least in the short term.

Brazil supplies over a third of Chinese beef imports but Brazilian beef is currently suspended from the Chinese market. In the year to October Brazilian beef accounted for around 12% of Chinese red meat protein imports, and 10% if we also included poultry meat.

Any beef which had left Brazil before the ban was put in place, has been accepted by China. The embargo came in September, but due to freight times the effect is not yet showing in Chinese import data. We can however begin to see it in Brazilian export data. This shows that most of the beef has not found an alternative outlet, although Russia has just a three-year long embargo on Brazilian beef. The domestic market in Brazil is unlikely to offer an attractive home for this beef, as demand is weak amid an uncertain economic climate.

For the UK beef (and sheep meat) market there is likely to be little impact. The UK beef market is relatively isolated, as the UK and Europe have only limited interaction with the global market (although this is changing with increased UK access to the US). The sheep market is already tight and having reduced interaction with New Zealand at the moment.

 

 

By Rebecca Wright / AHDB

Nestle SA is jumping into the fake-meat business in China, seeking to revive weakening sales there by grabbing market share in the world’s biggest pork-consuming nation.

The Swiss company Wednesday introduced a range of plant-based meat alternatives in China under its Harvest Gourmet brand, Bloomberg reports.

Six options including kung pao chicken and braised meatballs will be available later this month on Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall online platform and in its Hema supermarket chain in Beijing and Shanghai, before being rolled out more broadly.

The food maker has a factory in the northern Tianjin that will make products such as faux burger patties and pork mince for restaurants and other food service providers.

“The food sector is undergoing a quiet revolution as healthy, nutritious and environmentally friendly foods are gaining an increasingly large share of the market,” said Rashid Qureshi, chief executive officer of Nestle’s Greater China Region, in an email.

 

Chinese trade sanctions have spread to lamb with two of Australia’s biggest exporters effectively banned from the industry’s biggest market.

China is refusing to accept sheep meat from Australian Lamb Company and JBS Brooklyn after they were closed for short periods because of COVID-19 outbreaks.

The lamb and sheepmeat trade with China – worth almost $780 million in 2019-20 – joins beef, barley, wine, seafood, timber and coal on the growing list of Australian commodities targeted as relations between Beijing and the Morrison government continue to deteriorate.

Those relations hit a low last week when a senior Chinese official circulated a doctored image of an Australian soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan boy holding a lamb.

The Australian Lamb Company, which employs about 600 people at Colac, and the JBS Brooklyn plant near Port Melbourne have been reopened for months with no infections but remain shut out of China.

China has not imposed import sanctions on United States abattoirs hit by COVID-19 and is reopening to abattoirs in countries such as Brazil and Argentina which have high rates of infection.

 

 

by Brad Thompson

China has suspended the importation of more Australian beef, this time from Meramist Pty Ltd, the sixth supplier to face such a move in a country that is one of China’s main meat suppliers.

China made the decision yesterday but did not provide a reason.

It has already banned imports from five other Australian beef suppliers this year, citing reasons that have included issues with labelling and health certificates.

Australia’s ties with China – its top trade partner – were already strained. The relationship has significantly deteriorated since Canberra called for an enquiry into the origins of the coronavirus.

China stopped receiving applications and registration for beef exports from the Meramist plant from 7 December, China’s General Administration of Customs said in a notice on its website, without giving a reason.

Mike Eathorne, the general manager of Meramist, told the ABC last night he had only just received the news.

“I was advised five minutes ago and I have been given absolutely no reasons,” he said, adding he could not comment further.

 

Reuters /ABC