Sunday, July 15, 2007 Singapore yet to issue pork export certificate
THE scheduled shipment of the country's pioneer shipment of premium fresh frozen pork meat to Singapore last month failed to materialize, pending the validation of the condition of processing plants and piggeries in Mindanao, a top company executive said.
Stephen Castillo, general manager of Matutum Meat Packing Corp. based in nearby Polomolok, South Cotabato, said they are still waiting for the arrival of Singaporean experts who will follow up on the status of the swine industry in the region.
Matutum Meat is one of two Mindanao pork meat processing firms tapped by the Department of Agriculture early this year to embark on the country's first foreign shipment of cut pork parts.
The other is the Nenita Quality Foods Corp. based in the Davao region.
"Singapore has yet to conduct a final audit on the condition of swine farms and processing plants. We have not been notified when they would come. Maybe they still have many schedules in other parts of the world," Castillo said.
"They would not issue (export) certification unless they will again visit the area," he added.
Singaporean experts arrived in Mindanao last year to initially assess the condition of the swine industry in the area.
Castillo expressed confidence the newly constructed plant of Matutum Meat will pass the rigid standards of Singapore.
Operating now for about 10 weeks, Matutum Meat's facility is "99 percent complete where workers are just putting on the finishing touches," he said.
Matutum Meat's production output on a weekly basis now reaches 1,500 to 2,000 pigs as commercial farms in the city and South Cotabato province are slowly getting the services of the firm, Castillo said.
In two to three years, he projected the firm to process 5,000 heads on a weekly basis.
Matutum Meat, a sister company of Cebu-based Sunpride Foods Inc., is a fully Filipino-owned company with investments of around P200 million for its modern slaughterhouse and meat processing facilities.
Castillo noted they won't discriminate backyard-grown pigs from those raised by commercial operators since the demand for fresh pork meat is huge domestically and internationally. (BSS)
