Romania can supply half of the EU with pork'

Romania has the capacity to meet half of the European Union's pork needs. Sorin Minea, the president of the Romanian Employers' Federation in the Food Industry (Romalimenta). According to him, the fact that this capacity is currently not being fully utilized is because the focus is on eradicating African swine fever.

If all existing slaughterhouses (with a permit) in Romania are running at full capacity, they will be able to process 4 to 5 times the Romanian meat production. Minea writes that. "This concerns about 185 slaughterhouses. In theory, this would enable us to meet the entire Romanian demand for pork and half of the European Union's pork demand." At the moment the slaughterhouses only produce at about 30% of the capacity.

The fact that slaughter is not carried out in full is due to the many outbreaks of African swine fever. “The need to eradicate African swine fever hinders the development of these slaughterhouses,” said Minea. "It also ensures that we still import meat." The main supplier of pork is Germany. In 2019, the total imported volume amounted to 52.200 tons, accounting for €114 million.

Corona crisis
In addition to the outbreaks of African swine fever, the chairman also indicates that the corona pandemic has affected the producers. Milk and meat prices are very low for producers. Consumption is also falling. "We have made cutbacks and our investment budget is lower. The catering industry used to be more than 20% of our turnover. That does cut it," says Sorin Minea.

Kimberly Baker

Kimberly Bakker is an all-round editor at Boerenbusiness. She also has an eye for the social media channels of Boerenbusiness.

k.baker @boerenbusiness. Nl

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