Frozen pork stocks continue decline

INQUIRER.net stock images

The country’s frozen pork stockpile declined for the third straight week, while repopulation efforts are helping improve local pork supplies.

“We shall also see more local pork as many have repopulated last year and started to sell their fatteners this year,” Chester Warren Tan, president of the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc., told the Inquirer in a text message.

Latest data from the National Meat Inspection Service showed the inventory of frozen pork in accredited cold storage units as of March 7 dropped by 6.1 percent to 51,121.42 metric tons from 54,464.07 week-on-week.

This figure, however, is an increment of 150.4 percent from the 20,419.77 MT in the same period last year.

Imported pork in accredited commercial and in-house cold storages cornered the majority of frozen pork stocks at 50,145.13 MT, while locally produced pork totaled 976.29 MT.

With the economy further opening up, Tan said institutional buyers “like hotels, restaurants and even carinderias” continued to buy frozen pork but consumers still preferred local over imported pork because of the quality.

Central Luzon cornered the bulk of imported frozen pork supply at 17,674.79 MT, followed by Calabarzon at 14,707.95 MT and the NCR at 12,739.49 MT.

NCR and Calabarzon accounted for nearly two-thirds of local frozen pork stock at 282.82 MT and 269.39 MT, respectively.

Local pork producers, who have yet to fully recover from the adverse impacts of the African swine fever outbreak of 2019, already resumed repopulation in the latter part of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021. Industry stakeholders previously said it would take 11 months to one year to produce market hog or meat.

Price monitoring from the Department of Agriculture as of Monday showed the prevailing price of pork liempo increased to P380 per kilogram from P370 per kg recorded last March 11.

A kilo of pork ham (kasim) in Metro Manila markets was sold at P340, higher than last week’s P330.

The prevailing price of whole chicken (dressed) rose to P180 per kg from P170 per kg. INQ