Russia’s EU pork ban causes supply shortage – plants close
Five meat processing plants have stopped production due to a shortage of pork supplies in the Kaliningrad region of Russia, according to Konstantin Suslov, Deputy Prime-Minister of the Regional Government for the Kaliningrad region.
A large number of other enterprises have decreased the volume of production.
Kaliningrad meat processing industry focuses on supplying processed pork products to mainland Russia – so the ban on the import of raw materials from European countries has resulted in the shortage of raw materials in the domestic market. However, according to the Union of Pig Producers the same situation has been observed in many other regions in the country.
According to the regional minister of Agriculture Vladimir Zarudny the Russian authorities are currently working on improving the situation trying to increase the supply of pork materials from USA and South America markets.
“Our meat processing is focused on low-quality or cheap raw materials from Europe. Today Rosselkhoznadzor is carrying out work to allow the supply from a number of slaughterhouses in the United States of America, which had been closed more than a year ago due to the use of ractopamine,” he said.
“We are intending to open the market to slaughterhouses, which are free from the use of ractopamine, and thus significantly expand the resource base of our companies. In addition, a number of contracts have been finalised for the increase of the supply of pork from Paraguay, Brazil and Canada.”
Join 18,000+ subscribers
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated about all the need-to-know content in the pigsector, three times a week.
