Supermarkets see slower sales amid ASF scare

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s supermarkets expect a decline in their sales as consumers opted not to eat pork amid the entry of the deadly African Swine fever into the country.

The Philippine Amalgamated Supermarkets Association Inc. (PAGASA) said there has been a slight decline in consumer sales but eventually picked up a during the holiday season.

“Especially in terms of canned and frozen meat products, there has been a decline before the Christmas season but it returned eventually. But there is still fear among them,” PAGASA president Steven Cua told reporters yesterday.

“There was a perceived decrease in demand for canned and frozen pork. People shifted to other products,” he said.

Supermarkets met with Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte on Friday to discuss the next steps to be undertaken following the discovery of ASF-infected products in two supermarkets.

Despite this, Cua doesn’t expect much negative effect in terms of sales.

“I think there’s going to be more awareness among consumers and retailers will be more prudent and careful when they choose their meat,” he said.

While producers earlier said demand was already picking up, Cua said it was difficult to say if this would actually translate to higher sales of supermarkets.

“Pork comes in many forms and household is just a small portion of that. We have the institutional buyers such as canteens, eateries, fast food, food kiosks and all of them would have to source their meat not from supermarkets but from meat suppliers directly,” he said.

Meanwhile, the QC government will issue an executive order on how to address the recent incident and prevent this from occurring again.

“We agreed that the supermarkets will submit to us the list of protocols that they will put in place, internal control system to regulate themselves,” Belmonte said.

Just this week, another large-scale supermarket was involved in the selling of ASF-tainted meat products, prompting the government to further strengthen its efforts to stop the spread of the disease.

Latest data showed that affected areas with ASF reached 612 barangays in 73 municipalities in the nine provinces infected namely Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, Tarlac, Rizal, Cavite, Pangasinan, and parts of Metro Manila.

Of the total 612 barangays, 329 are ASF-positive while 283 underwent depopulation due to the protocol but tested negative for the disease.

Cumulative total of 147,334 hogs have been killed and disposed since the outbreak in August. Bulk of which or 121,331 were from backyard farms.