THE Provincial Veterinary Office (PVO) in Negros Occidental, through its Animal Health and Meat Inspection Services Division, is monitoring the operation of various slaughterhouses in the province.
There are three slaughterhouses identified to have a Double A ("AA") accreditation in the province. These include Sagay Abattoir and Meat Processing Plant in Sagay City, Bacolod City Slaughterhouse, and Victorias Foods Corp. in Victorias City.
Local registered meat establishments (LRMEs), on the other hand, classified as "A" are those in 11 cities and nine municipalities.
All in all, the daily average of slaughtered pigs province-wide is pegged at 773 heads.
During the monitoring conducted earlier this month, Animal Health and Meat Inspection Services Division chief Dr. Ryan Janoya noted that the slaughterhouse in Sagay has boosted its income during the last quarter of 2018.
This is attributed to the expanded operation of the facility starting last September by catering to more local commercial hog raisers, and making meat products available outside the province like Cebu City.
PVO earlier reported that the abattoir has a cold storage capacity of 50 to 100 tons of pork carcass, poultry, and other meat products. It has a slaughtering capacity of 50 to 100 heads per hour.
For the last quarter of last year, the facility started to market meat products instead of live animals especially pork.
It can be recalled that the provincial government has been promoting the marketing of frozen pork carcass given that it is more beneficial compared to selling live animals.
The selling of pork carcass eliminates loss weight, injuries, and mortalities among animals during shipment affecting meat quality, it said.
Moreover, LRMEs in the province have yet to acquire accreditation from the National Meat Inspection Services (NMIS).
In fact, local government units are currently upgrading their slaughterhouse facilities in order to meet the NMIS standards for "AA" slaughterhouse classification.