World meat industry news

The Ministry of Agriculture approved the request of sausage producers to allow the import of 100,000 tons of imported beef with a duty of 0% in 2023. Russian beef producers do not agree with this decision.

Producers of sausages and meat products have applied to the Ministry of Agriculture with a request to allow the import of pork and beef with zero duty in 2023, Izvestia reports. According to the publication, the request regarding pork was denied to the producers, and the quota for the import of beef will be extended until 2023. It will be possible to import 100 thousand tons of beef, while the import duty will be 0%, which makes this opportunity attractive for both importers and producers.

This measure had to be taken in order to prevent a jump in prices for sausage in the country, the Ministry of Agriculture explained. Russia has its own beef production, and it could be enough for the production of sausages, however, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, not all beef meets the requirements that sausage producers, especially dry-cured sausage, must comply with.

At the same time, many sausage recipes according to the traditional recipe require the content of a certain proportion of meat - for example, the usual "Doctor" should contain 250 grams of beef per kilogram of sausage. Cheating to producers, even if there is a desire, will not be allowed by the Mercury system, the department notes - it tracks all the meat from the producer to the processor, and if only chicken went to the conveyor, the system will not allow the product containing beef to leave it.

However, beef producers were dissatisfied with the decision. Representatives of the National Meat Association noted that a number of support measures were taken in Russia for pork producers, including those related to the import of pork - a high duty was imposed on it. Due to this, in recent years, pig breeding in the country has developed rapidly and has reached such a level that the country has a stable overproduction of pork, according to the National Union of Pig Breeders. In this regard, pork prices in the domestic market have become lower, and the consumption of inexpensive pork by the population has increased, according to Rosstat data.

A compromise could be the supply of beef from the EAEU countries, according to the National Meat Association. For example, Kazakhstan is ready to import surpluses of its own beef - however, producers do not yet know about the quality of this product and cannot know whether it is better suited for the production of sausages than Russian.

At the same time, the Ministry of Agriculture notes that the final decision on the import of beef has not yet been made. It needs permission from the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), but it has not yet said its word.