Dear readers,
With the European football championship advancing and tourists roaming to the beaches again, we are looking for good news in the pig industry:
- Republican Congressman Warren Davidson, joined by eight Republican colleagues, including two members of the House Agriculture Committee has introduced a bill to ban the use of federal funds for cell-cultured meat. The REAL Meat Act of 2024 would prohibit funding for research, development, promotion, advertisement or production of cell-cultured meat. It also would outlaw using federal nutrition funds for their purchase.
- The Canadian federal government has allocated more than $9.6 million funding for African Swine Fever Industry Preparedness Program projects across the country. The Canadian Pork Council, in collaboration with McMaster University in Hamilton, received funding to develop ASFMeter, a portable, low-cost tool for rapidly diagnosing ASF in the field.
- Thailand’s food safety regulator has published draft regulations suggesting bans on meat- and dairy-related terms for plant-based analogues. It is suggested that plant-based meat producers can use names that correspond with the physical characteristics of the product. For example ‘mince’, ‘fillets’, ‘roast’, etc. are all fair game – so long as they’re followed by terms that make it clear they’re plant-based (such as ‘from plants’ or ‘from soy/pea’, and so on).“However, words that will cause consumers confusion or to misunderstand the product to be made from meat will not be allowed on the labels,” the agency added. This means terms like ‘meat’ or ‘meat product’, those specifying the type of animal (such as ‘beef’, ‘pork’ or ‘chicken’), and other descriptors like ‘Angus’, Wagyu’ and even ‘clean meat’ would be prohibited.
Events calendar:
- The Restaurant Asia is a leading trade fair for the hospitality industry held at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre in Singapore , It takes place for the 5th time on 3 days from Wednesday, 26.06.2024 to Friday, 28.06.2024.
- HOTELEX Chengdu is an annual trade fair focusing on the hotel and hospitality industry, organized by the Shanghai Sinoexpo. The actual edition takes place on 3 days from Thursday, 27.06.2024 to Saturday, 29.06.2024.
- FOOD TAIPEI is an annual international food expo held at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center in Taipei, Taiwan. It will take place on 4 days from Wednesday, 26. June to Saturday, 29. June 2024.
Arts and crafts:
- Part of Stonehenge has been covered in orange powder paint by two Just Stop Oil campaigners on Wednesday, the day before celebrations begin for the Summer Solstice. The monument is an thousands of years old proof of connecting and understanding nature, has nothing to do with industrial processes. This is not activism, is vandalism!
Human
I got a lot of questions from pig industry players related to the Chinese “anti-dumping” investigation on European pork. My thoughts on this: it’s a clear political issue. Europe has lost its relevance as pork supplier in China on two reasons:
- ASF: while blocking European countries, Chinese authorities allow import from Russia.
- Price: the Americas deliver cheaper meat to China. Dumping is the practice of selling products very cheaply in another country, in order to stop companies in that country from being able to compete…
None of the above support the investigation, it is pure politics. Meanwhile the ASF is far of getting under control in Asia, even we cant get relevant info about the situation in China, we get news from the area: an ASF outbreak was confirmed on a pig farm with about 24,000 pigs in Yeongcheon, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. According to the Department of Animal Health of Vietnam, stated on 17 of June, there have been 196 outbreaks in 59 districts of 18 provinces and cities in less than 21 days. The number of infected pigs is 10,544, and the number of dead and destroyed pigs is 10,612. And this is the country that is producing the ASF vaccine…It is hard to believe that China has a better epidemiological situation. I think we will see an increase of the pork imports in China by the end of the year, even if the main suppliers will not be from Europe.
The weather is hot, in Spain, slaughtering weight decreased 580 grams last week and price goes slightly up. Last week I was hoping for an increase in the German reference price also. The new ASF outbreak in the Hesse region cooled the trend.
I made a wrong prediction last week. I am only human…
