Meat traders said Tuesday the implementation of a new meat import policy that imposes double standards on frozen and fresh meats affected their profit margins in 2012.
“We continue to hope for good returns for our investment. The government is imposing double standards on fresh and frozen meats which we find unfair and this has greatly affected sales in the past months,” Meat Importers and Traders Association president Jesus Cham said.
Cham said the government refused to allow the sale of poor man’s meat like offal, pig’s mask [face], ear parts and innards like liver and intestines at wet markets if they were not stored inside chillers.
He said this might lead smaller imported meat traders to close shop.
“Never mind the premium meat cuts, they have a niche market, but a portion of imported meat goes to the lower segment, to low-end consumers.
The government is depriving them of cheaper protein choices,” said Cham.
The Agriculture Department earlier issued Administrative Order No. 6, which prohibits the display of imported frozen meat on meat stands in the wet markets.
Sellers of imported frozen meat are required to have a chiller where the frozen products should be kept for hygienic purposes.
Meanwhile, Administrative Order No. 5 regulates the conduct of sale of fresh meats in the wet markets. The measure allows for the display of freshly slaughtered meat products for up to eight hours.
Meat traders and importers said the new rules governing the sale of frozen and fresh meat products in the wet markets discriminated against frozen meat.
“While Administrative Order No. 6 series of 2012 is an improvement over AO 22 affecting frozen meat, AO 5 that was concurrently issued by the government is not consumer-oriented and tend to be more favorable to local hog producers,” said Cham.
