China is the world’s largest consumer of meat, but with the government keeping a tight grip on domestic production and approved imports, a shortfall has been created, leaving the void to be filled by illegal smuggling of meat into the country.
Police and customs agents estimate that hundreds of thousands of tons of illegal meat is coming into the country. “We will put all our strength into tracking the source and sale points of smuggled frozen meat, including those people orchestrating the process from behind the scene,” the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) said.
Crackdown on meat smuggling in China
The crackdown on smuggled meat was ramped up last year, with refrigerated and container trucks being closely scrutinized. This move forced smugglers deeper underground. Authorities are saying seizures of smuggled meat has increased three-fold this year with the increased surveillance.
Digital Journal reported that in June, 100,000 tons of smuggled frozen meat was seized, worth around 3 billion yuan ($483 million). Some of the meat was 40 years old. It was ascertained the meat had come from the “border area” with Vietnam, where it was “difficult to control the flow of meat.”
Going the underground route to get meat across the border
Reuters reporters talked with customs officials and smugglers in Hong Kong recently. In a story filed on Thursday, they described watching a group of travelers, sitting under the shade trees in a dusty industrial lot in Sheung Shui, a remote suburb of Hong Kong, close to the border.
They were packing dirty bags and backpacks with Styrofoam in order to protect the packages and small boxes of Brazilian beef they were smuggling across the border. Known as “feet,” the part-time smugglers can earn 200-300 yuan ($30-50) per trip, Reuters says. Reporters saw boxes of meat labeled “Boi Brasil” and “Cargill”.
“Before they used trucks, but those were for high-quality beef from Japan and New Zealand and maybe America,” one Hong Kong smuggler Alan Wong, 36, told Reuters.
It is obvious that smugglers are taking greater risks in order to meet China’s insatiable need for meats, and yet, with the quality of the products being questionable, and food safety being compromised, it is a no-win problem. The scale of the smuggling has angered legitimate exporters from countries, like Australia. The price of smuggled meat, even poor quality meat, is 30 to 60 percent cheaper because of the high import duties.
“You have people stuck with meat on the Vietnam side of the border they can’t sell. They start taking it up and down the river and breaking it into smaller units to bring it in,” said a Shanghai-based meat industry advisor. “It’s more underground and therefore more dangerous.”
