Country’s love for wings sparks crisis

CONSUMERS’ preference for “brown meat” like chicken drumsticks and wings is listed as one of the major reasons for the poultry “crisis”.

This is as a result of “dumping” of foreign chicken imports from developed nations which prefer chicken breasts or “white meat”.

This market preference is affecting the country’s poultry sector, which is bleeding thousands of jobs due to the increase in cheaper imports, parliament’s select committee on trade and international relations heard yesterday.

“Dumping” occurs when a company exports a product from another country at a price lower than the price normally charged for the same product in the home market.

Garth Strachan, deputy director-general for industrial development in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said high costs of feed and drought had an impact.

“The critical increase in imports of bone-in quarters and you also add mechanically de-boned meat portions is also part of the problem. We all know there are retrenchments under way. It’s a very concentrated industry. There are only two big poultry producers in South Africa …”

He said electricity had been rising steeply with municipalities adding double digit increases.

Xolelwa Mlumbi, deputy director-general for International Trade and Economic Development at the DTI, said, following a tariff investigation, tariff duties on a number of frozen chicken products were introduced in 2013.

“The above duties are applicable to imports of all countries except the member states of the EU and SADC.”