The meat of the meat controversy

Before we start this piece, allow me to greet my beloved wife, Jessica a very Happy Birthday today. We thank God for all the years we’ve been together especially for the blessings that the Lord showered us especially our children and grandchildren. In the past years, her birthday falls on the Christmas party of her company, Sun Life of Canada, so she always had a party for her birthday. But they already held their Christmas party last week, so for this special occasion, it will just be a simple family gathering. Many happy returns of the day. From me and the kids. We love you Mommy!

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We are still very much in the holiday season and for the past week, certain issues have been raised on the safety and quality of our meat products, especially frozen meat products. Last week, the Central Visayas Pork Producers Cooperative (CVPPC) complained that despite the holidays, they have experienced sales loses by as much as 40% due to the flooding of imported meat in the wet markets. This was further aggravated by the fact that my good friend, Dr. Alice Utlang, Cebu City Veterinarian confiscated imported meat and poultry of poor quality. Who imported these meat?

Apparently, few people know that the Department of Agriculture (DA) have already issued guidelines on the handling of chilled or frozen meat products in order to assure the public of the safety of these meat. One of these is a requirement for the accreditation and licensing of importers of frozen meat by the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS). But sadly, not all who sell meat products get themselves accredited with the NMIS and continue with their old ways, often mixing imported meat with their local meat. I personally know the professionalism of the people behind the NMIS as I was able to touch base with them when I was Market Consultant for the City of Cebu.

Enter the Cebu Provincial Board when it appealed to the Bureau of Customs (BoC) to look into the massive dumping of frozen meat products in Cebu, which allegedly posed health hazards. For this Christmas holidays, I’ve been going with my family to the various supermarkets and to be totally honest, I never saw any imported meat that was sold to consumers that was already spoiled or rotten. But I only bought local meat. Maybe these are just ugly stories spun by those who refuse to get an accreditation from the NMIS.

I wanted to get into the bottom of this controversy as the complaint only came from the side of the CVPPC. Luckily, one of my closest friends, Mr. Jaime “Jimmy” Escaño has a company called JEDCO that imports frozen meats and is a member of the Meat Importers and Traders Association (MITA). So I text Jimmy to email me his comments on this issue. Here’s his letter in full, which is quite self-explanatory.

“Dear Bobit: We, the meat importers of Cebu are one with the Province of Cebu in providing “safe and quality” meat to the Province as well as the various cities of Cebu. In fact, we welcome the implementation of AO 22 of the Department of Agriculture since most of us already have the “cold chain” infrastructure in place up to our delivery vehicles. We call upon the local government units to provide the necessary infrastructure to complete the “cold chain” in the Wet Markets.

We would like to add that these be applied to all (hot and frozen) meat. As you very well know, bacterial growth multiplies faster in higher temperatures. These imported meat from the US, Australia and Europe (not China, contrary to the news reports) go through a very rigorous process wherein zero bacterial count is the target. If ever bacteria are found by their country’s veterinary officers beyond the allowable count, then this meat is condemned. Some of our suppliers even practice zero tolerance.

Therefore, it is a misnomer to state that “Imported frozen meat poses a health hazard to the consumers.” When in fact, imported meats has a very much lower bacterial count compared to local hot meat coming from our local slaughterhouses. We strongly recommend that these local meat also be subjected to the cold chain process in order to give the consuming public the safest meat. Thank you for the opportunity to be able to make the consuming public aware of what safe meat should be. Merry Christmas to you and the family. Jimmy Escaño”

Now that we got both sides of the coin on this controversy, I would like to believe that those who are complaining are the very people who refuse to get accreditation from the NMIS. Since the meat importers have to adhere to the rigorous processing from countries where they import the meat like the US or Australia, chances are the meat that they import to the country meet or even surpass the NMIS standards. But it is the local meat that more often than not that fails the NMIS standards. So there really is nothing for the BoC to look into. Imported meat is no doubt more expensive, but very safe.

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