Big bosses feast on fowl, prove quality
By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-03-01 08:04

Representatives from 100 of the nation's top poultry companies have dined on fowl delicacies during an unprecedented all-chicken banquet at the grandiose Great Hall of the People.

Saturday's event in Beijing has already become known as a "gastronomic show of confidence."

The producers of half of China's chicken used the evening to make a solemn promise that their products, prepared in line with stringent hygiene standards, are safe.

At the moment, as the lethal bird flu dampens some people's appetite for chicken, China's poultry business leaders are appealing to the public to have faith in them and start eating their products again.

"As the key enterprises in the fowl sector, we've always attached utmost importance to the safety and hygiene of our products," Wang Xiulin, president of the Deda Group in Northeast China's Jilin Province, said in a statement signed by 99 other managers.

None of China's deadly bird flu cases have been reported in the modern poultry farms belonging to the nation's 100 leading enterprises or in the scattered courtyard farms of those who supply them, said Han Wei, president of the Dalian Hanwei Group from Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Rather, the avian flu has occurred mainly in small, privately owned farms or in households, said Ning Yibao, director of the China Institute of Veterinary Drug Control.

Han said that is testimony to the massive technical and financial investment in quarantine and quality control that has been carried out by China's poultry "bellwethers."

Ning assured consumers that China's bird flu control measures have made it virtually impossible for affected fowl to enter the market.

He said he hopes the experience and expertise of the key poultry farms will be disseminated among other firms and farmers.

The 100 poultry companies produced 51 per cent of China's 6.6 million tons meat chicken last year. They are the major suppliers of supermarkets, as well as the KFC and McDonald's fast food chains on the mainland, said Cao Xumin, president of the China Chamber of Commerce for the Import and Export of Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal By-Products.

To strengthen market footholds - and to break the ever rising technical barriers some foreign countries have imposed on Chinese imports - the poultry business has established a wholesome disease prevention, quarantine and quality management system guaranteeing that it can provide top grade and safe products to markets, Cao said.

As a result, China has exported US$1.7 billion worth of chicken including 520,000 tons of frozen chicken meat, about 70 per cent of which was contributed by the 100 leading poultry enterprises, according to customs statistics.

"Largely due to consumers' inadequate understanding of the epidemic, sales of both eggs and chickens have dropped by half in many regions," said Jia Youling, a spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture on bird flu control.

Jia said he believed the key poultry enterprises' promotion of product safety, plus the country's easing epidemic situation, will prompt an increase in trade.

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