BEIJING - Cao Xianli, the owner of a 'ribs and rice' restaurant in eastern China's Qingdao city, is facing his biggest test in a decade of running the eatery.
Not only have costs doubled in the last year because of soaring pork prices, but he's not even sure he'll be able to secure enough of the meat needed for his signature dish.
"My concern is how much longer I will still be able to buy pork. If I can't buy pork, I have to close my shop," Cao told Reuters. China's rocketing pork prices come after a deadly disease ravaged its huge hog herd, leaving the world's top consumer of the meat short of about a quarter of its usual supplies. That's about 13.5 million tonnes, more than the entire pork production of the United States.
With pork by far the most popular meat in China, food inflation is running at its highest in almost eight years, surprising both seasoned economists and restaurateurs.
"In the past year, both we and the market underestimated the pace of pork price inflation," wrote analyst Lu Ting and colleagues at Japanese bank Nomura in an October report, revising up their forecast for inflation next year.
PURCHASING POWER
Sky rocketing pork prices are impacting the entire supply chain. Wholesale chicken prices are up 33 percent on a year ago, driven by widescale substitution of pricy pork with cheaper poultry, meaning China's popular fried chicken chains are also feeling the heat.
Industry leader KFC has managed the surge in costs by forcing suppliers to take much of the hit, keeping inflation under 10 percent, executives with the firm's owner Yum China Holdings said on an Oct. 28 earnings call.
To absorb the rest of the increase, it has increased the number of non-chicken items on its menu, adding a duck meat wrap and a Portobello mushroom burger. Duck is China's cheapest meat.
KFC is also using cheaper chicken parts, replacing wings with 'strips' of breast meat, and offering a 'wing tip bucket' in July and again in October.
Though little more than skin, bone and cartilage at the end of the chicken wing, the fried wing tips proved popular, said chief executive Joey Wat on the recent call.
"There are a group, not a huge group, but there's still a group of people who just love it", she told analysts.
The company warned that 2020 will be "another challenging year for commodity inflation" but said it will be "prudent" on the portion of costs passed on to customers.
NO ROOM TO DIVERSIFY
The millions of smaller players in China's 4 trillion yuan ($568 billion) catering sector have fewer options to cope with soaring costs and limited supplies.
Though imports have surged this year, an expected 3 million tonnes of pork from abroad can't plug domestic needs, and Beijing only has small volumes of frozen pork in state reserves.
"The impact on us is huge. We sell ribs, that's it. For us, there is no room for diversification," said Cao, owner of the Qingdao restaurant.
Cao hiked his prices by about 10 percent to 19 yuan per serving and managed to retain his customers.
"People still come as they also have no choice. If they go to the market to buy pork, they'll find it's no cheaper," he said.
But others have struggled to keep customers while raising prices. Xishaoye, a Beijing-based chain that specializes in 'roujiamo', the traditional Chinese pork bun, had to lower prices again after a small hike hurt business, said Ji Chen, a manager at one of the chain's outlets.
"It's a highly competitive market, you can't raise your price more than by a low single-digit," said Lina Yan, consumer analyst at HSBC.
Xishaoye has resorted to promoting chicken and vegetable variants of the pork bun, and offering a set menu with pork-free side dishes to steer customers away from their bestselling item.
That helped to halve pork consumption at their 43 restaurants but it has still racked up losses of more than 6 million yuan this year, said chief executive Meng Bing.
"Ingredients usually account for about 30-40 percent of costs, so if the cost of ingredients increases by 20 percent to 30 percent, the company is highly likely to lose money," said Meng.
China's Vice Premier Hu Chunhua has urged farmers to restock empty farms and called on provincial authorities to do all they can to guarantee pork supplies, particularly ahead of the important Lunar New Year holiday next month.
The agriculture ministry says pig production should return to about 80 percent of normal levels by late 2020, but many others believe that forecast is overly optimistic, particularly as swine fever is still spreading.
After dipping last month, pork prices are rising again and even larger companies could come under greater pressure if inflation doesn't soon subside.
An executive with one of China's largest mass-market catering companies said it may soon be forced to raise prices.
"Increasing the price is really the last resort as our consumers are price-sensitive. But if pork prices stay high in 2020, we will have no choice," he said, declining to be identified because pork supplies are a sensitive topic.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LONDON/BEIJING -- China is scouring the world for meat to replace the millions of pigs killed by African swine fever (ASF), boosting prices, business and profits for European and South American meatpackers as it re-shapes global markets for pork, beef and chicken.
The European Union, the world's second largest pork producer after China, has ramped up sales to the Asian giant although it can only fill part of the shortfall caused by ASF. Argentina and Brazil have approved new export plants to meet demand and are selling beef and chickens, as well as pork, to fill the gap. U.S. producers, however, have been hampered due to tariffs imposed by Beijing.
Other Asian countries are also ready to step up imports as they, too, deal with outbreaks of ASF. Vietnam, the Philippines, North and South Korea, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia are all struggling to contain outbreaks of the disease, which is deadly to pigs although not harmful to humans.
"It is very good news for those involved in processing and have licenses for exports to China," said Justin Sherrard, global strategist, animal protein at Rabobank.
Major EU pork processors include Danish Crown, Tonnies Group and Vion Food Group although the market is fragmented with many small- and medium-size players.
Shortages in the world's top pork consumer have been exacerbated by the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations in late January, when pork, and pork dumplings in particular, play a central role in the food on offer.
One of the biggest European players Danish Crown said there had been a very clear jump in demand from China in the run-up to the Lunar New Year and it was bullish on the outlook for 2020.
China's state-owned agriculture conglomerate COFCO said this week it had agreed to buy $100 million of pork from Danish Crown in 2020 to help ease the domestic shortage.
NEW PLANTS IN SOUTH AMERICA
Rabobank estimates that China's hog herd, the world's largest, fell by half in the first eight months of 2019 and will likely shrink by 55 percent by the end of the year.
Many more meat plants in Argentina and Brazil have recently been approved to export to China including beef and chicken as well as pork.
Nicholas Lafontaine, a cattle rancher from the town of Azul, 300 kilometers (186 miles) southwest of Buenos Aires, said China had traditionally taken cheap cuts with premium steaks destined for the EU.
China is now taking the whole carcass, reducing the amount of meat sold on the local market for Argentina peso, a currency which has lost around a third of its value this year.
As processing margins have improved, plants have reopened.
"The other benefit that comes from growing Chinese demand is the reopening of beef plants, he said, adding that when a factory opens its doors it is thinking about China.
Neighboring Brazil has also benefited.
According to Brazilian meat trade groups, in one go Beijing authorized Brazil to more than double the number of beef plants with permits to sell directly to mainland China -- to 33.
Brazil exported 1.64 million tonnes of beef in 2018 with China buying 19.3 percent of the volume, trailing only Hong Kong. The South American country's exports have been forecast to rise to 1.8 million tonnes this year.
"China is the market paying the highest premiums for Brazilian meatpackers," Luciano Pascon, chief executive of privately-owned meatpacker Frigol, told Reuters in an interview.
TRADE WAR HITS US PRODUCERS
Hefty tariffs on American pork imposed by China as part of the ongoing trade conflict are likely to mean that the US industry will benefit less than its rivals.
US-based meat packers such as Smithfield Foods have, however, been able to secure some direct sales. Tyson Foods expects to benefit from African swine fever by increasing sales to China or other countries as the outbreak redirects global meat trading.
Tyson Foods share price has risen about 50 percent so far this year.
Trent Thiele, a farmer who raises about 60,000 hogs a year in Elma, Iowa, said, however, the trade war is hurting American hog producers.
Thiele said he would prefer selling US pork to Chinese buyers than picking up residual business elsewhere in the world because China is a main buyer of products such as pigs' feet and organ meat that other countries have little appetite for.
"A lot of our other competitor countries are obtaining the market share that naturally would have been ours if we didn't have the retaliatory tariffs," said Thiele, president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association.
ASTRONOMICAL
Imported pork ribs currently cost around 40,000 yuan ($5,680) per ton, compared with 17,600 yuan in spring 2019, traders said, while prices for other cuts such as pig front leg and rib meat have roughly doubled in that period.
"Right now, prices are astronomical, and the risk is very high," said a Beijing-based beef importer, who was struggling to gauge the right volumes to meet demand and avoid being left with expensive stock at the end of the holiday period.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Meat Price Index is up 12.5 percent so far this year and is at the highest level since January 2015.
The pork component has risen by more than 20 percent.
The high global pork prices are even sparking interest in pig farming in predominately Muslim Kazahkstan.
"Not a week goes by without someone visiting us who wants to get into pig farming," said Maksut Baktibayev, chairman of Kazakhstan's Meat Union, an industry lobby group.
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MANILA — The retail price of some premium Christmas food items like ham will likely increase, as higher manufacturing costs offset lower pork prices due to the African swine fever outbreak, the trade department said.
Manufacturing costs rose 30 to 60 percent, which could push the prices of premium fare for Noche Buena by 2 to 9 percent. Some traders also imported meat requirements for Christmas hams, said Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez.
Prices of cheaper products did not move, Lopez told DZMM.
"Takot din silang maipasa ang presyo kasi walang bibili e saka baka lumipat sa ibang brands," he added.
(They're also afraid to increase prices because consumers might not buy or patronize other brands.)
The DTI is inspecting markets daily to ensure that chicken prices do not exceed P180 per kilo as consumers switch to poultry from pork.
African swine fever does not affect humans despite causing hemorrhagic fever in pigs that almost always ends in death. An outbreak of the virus in parts of Rizal and Bulacan provinces has prompted authorities to cull around 7,000 hogs.
Pork accounts for 60 percent of meat consumption in the Philippines, the world's 8th biggest pork producer by volume, with its swine industry estimated at P260 billion, the Department of Agriculture earlier said.
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BEIJING - China's consumer inflation accelerated at its fastest pace in almost 6 years in September as African swine fever sent pork prices soaring nearly 70 percent, official data showed Tuesday.
Authorities have gone as far as tapping the nation's pork reserve to control prices of the staple meat, as the swine fever crisis could become a political and economic liability for the state.
The consumer price index (CPI) -- a key gauge of retail inflation -- hit 3.0 percent last month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, up from 2.8 percent in August and the highest since since November 2013.
Analysts in a Bloomberg news poll had forecast 2.9 percent.
The rise was caused by food price inflation, particularly disruptions to pork supply, Capital Economics said in a note.
The price of pork soared 69.3 percent on-year in September, the NBS said.
Beijing's official statistics say around one million pigs have been killed since the first outbreak of swine fever in August but that is widely considered to be an underestimate.
This in turn has also pushed up prices of other meats including beef, chicken and duck and eggs by up to 19 percent as consumers switched to other sources of protein.
"Looking ahead, consumer price inflation should continue to accelerate in the coming months as supply disruptions continue to push up pork prices and as the drag from lower oil prices eases," said Martin Lynge Rasmussen from Capital Economics.
Producer prices, however, continued to slide for the fifth straight month, hit by weakening demand and mounting trade tensions with the US.
The producer price index (PPI) -- an important barometer of the industrial sector that measures the cost of goods at the factory gate -- contracted 1.2 percent in September from the previous year, the NBS said.
A slowdown in factory gate inflation reflects sluggish demand, while a turn to deflation could dent corporate profits and drag on the world's number two economy.
This in turn could lead to a drop in prices globally.
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BEIJING - Sun Dawu sighs sadly when asked about the death of thousands of his pigs, killed by the African swine fever outbreak that has been decimating hog herds across China.
"The pig farm was completely destroyed," he says quietly, fanning himself from the heat and flies on his large Hebei province farm outside Beijing.
"It's a painful process, it's painful to watch them die. We buried all the dead pigs five meters (16 feet) underground."
More than a year since swine fever began to spread across the country, China's pig farmers are wary of replenishing their stock -- and the disease could become a political and economic liability for the government.
Frustrated after a month of official stonewalling, Sun posted pictures of the dead pigs on social media platform Weibo -- quickly attracting tens of millions of views and forcing the local government to respond.
Pigs that were not killed by the fever were culled.
Eight months later, his restocked herd is healthy, but under government restrictions his pig farm is still sealed off.
His livestock is quarantined and can't be sold for consumption until at least the second half of next year.
China's swine herd is down by about 40 percent, and the shortage has pushed prices of the country's meat staple up by at least half.
A Rabobank report warned China could lose 200 million pigs during the epidemic, and Sun said he believed the number of those affected is higher than official estimates.
"Some pig farmers dare not declare sick pigs, so they quietly sell off even dead pigs," he said.
TRADE WAR FALLOUT
By the time swine fever broke out on his farm and killed his herd of 15,000, Sun says "all the pigs of the other farms were dead".
But only one case of swine fever has been officially reported in Hebei, according to the agriculture ministry -- Sun Dawu's farm.
The province was declared free of the disease in April.
The shortage is being exacerbated by stuttering imports from the US in a painful trade war.
And as it wears on, it is not just a problem for farmers, but also for the country's leaders -- afraid of social repercussions and spiraling economic costs.
"Historically, high food inflation has triggered bouts of urban protests," says Victor Shih, the Hi Ho Miu Lam chair professor at University of California San Diego.
Beijing has implemented several measures to boost the pig population, including subsidies of up to five million yuan ($700,000) for breeders.
They also announced in September that new large-scale breeding bases were being built in southwest Sichuan province with the capacity to produce two million pigs a year.
But farmers contacted by AFP -- reluctant to be identified -- were afraid to raise new herds despite government subsidies, fearing that any trade deal between Beijing and Washington would undercut Chinese producers or that their hogs would be taken away again.
"When the trade war between China and the US ends, the government will start to import large quantities of foreign pork and Chinese farmers will have no profit," a Hebei farmer surnamed Zhang told AFP.
'LOST TOO MUCH'
In a bid to keep a grip on escalating prices, the government auctioned 30,000 tonnes of pork from its strategic meat reserves ahead of the National Day holiday.
Officials insisted in September that there was sufficient supply and prices would now be stable.
But given the slowing economy and the trade war, "pork-driven inflation has further limited the government's options", says Shih.
The government also toyed with encouraging citizens to eat less meat -- efforts met with mockery.
"We should just eat the pig feed, it will be healthier," wrote one social media user after a front-page article in the state-run People's Daily extolled a vegetarian lifestyle.
Farmers also accuse governments of not doing enough to tackle the crisis, particularly local authorities that don't want to fork out compensation to farmers.
Sun started as a farmer three decades ago with 50 pigs, but now runs a large business that he says can absorb the shock of his losses -- hundreds of millions of yuan in total.
But others are not so lucky.
"Some pig farms just lost too much to rebuild," Sun said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
* China has released 30,000 tons of reserve pork this month
* Aims to keep lid on soaring prices ahead of holidays
* Consumers say volumes too small, frozen meat not appetizing
BEIJING - China's supermarkets are topping up their meat counters with frozen pork from state reserves, after prices of the nation's favorite protein source surged to budget-busting levels, threatening to mar this week's National Day festivities.
Pork, which has a prominent place at nearly every Chinese dinner table, is in short supply after a deadly virus infected and killed millions of hogs across China over the last year.
Beijing has stepped in to try and quell prices that have jumped to almost double what they were a year ago and are still climbing, releasing 30,000 tons of pork in three batches over the last fortnight.
That appears to have dampened further price increases for now and helped sales, at least in the capital Beijing.
"Pork is selling much better compared with three weeks ago," said a butcher at the Qianxi Street branch of Yonghui Superstores in southwestern Beijing.
"Today we have very cheap frozen pork belly, it's only 17.98 yuan (per kg, or $2.52 per pound) compared with 35.98 yuan for fresh," he said. "We're not sure where the meat is from but it must be from Beijing's reserves."
Cheaper meat will be a relief to many ahead of the holidays. Chinese typically gather for elaborate meals during festivals, and most of the repasts will feature pork in some form.
Sufficient pork supply is a "most basic requirement" for the people's welfare, said Vice Premier Hu Chunhua in a televised message to officials in late August. He urged them to guarantee supplies and increase the scale of reserves.
Shoppers in Beijing said they will not skimp on meat during the National Day holiday, whatever the price, although they have been reducing their intake at regular mealtimes.
"Before I would buy four or five ribs, but now I only buy two or three, as long as it's enough for a meal," said a retiree surnamed Wang shopping at the Yonghui store.
Many people are substituting chicken, duck or beef for some of their pork intake, with pork so pricy that even more expensive meats now appear affordable.
For some, however, it is hard to stomach a change in diet.
"My family doesn't like beef, it's a heating food, so I can only buy pork," said Wang, referring to the classification of foods as either "heating" or "cooling" in traditional Chinese medicine.
DROP IN THE OCEAN
State sales will have limited impact on prices overall, said Miranda Zhou, an analyst at Euromonitor, with total reserve volumes sold in recent weeks just a "drop in the ocean" in a country that eats about 40 million tonnes of pork a year.
News of the latest sale from state food stores was trending on Weibo, China's popular microblogging site, with many users commenting on how reserve pork had done little to cool prices.
Others questioned the quality of pork that had been in storage, describing it as "zombie meat".
"In addition to the small volumes, in the south they like fresh pork, so frozen pork really isn't appealing," said Zhou, the analyst.
A man surnamed Zheng shopping in a wet market in downtown Nanning, 2,000 km (1,250 miles) south of the capital, said he had not seen any frozen meat on sale there.
"We don't eat that kind of stuff here," he said.
"Even if there was frozen pork, we wouldn't buy it. We only eat fresh meat."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SEOUL, South Korea—South Korea has confirmed a third case of African swine fever at a hog farm in a city near Seoul after the country’s first outbreak of the deadly virus last week, the agriculture ministry said on Monday.
The new case occurred at a pig farm with about 1,800 pigs in the city of Gimpo, nearly 14 km south of the city of Paju where the country’s first case was confirmed on Sept. 17, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said in a statement.
Since the first outbreak, over 15,000 pigs had been culled, according to the agriculture ministry data. That makes up 0.1 percent of the country’s pig population of above 12 million pigs.
South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy, has raised the country’s animal disease alert level to the highest following the outbreak and ramped up disinfection measures to keep the virus spreading further.
African swine fever is highly contagious among pigs and nearly 100 percent fatal, but does not affect humans. It has spread across China including Vietnam and the Philippines.
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HONG KONG—Hong Kong will cull 4,700 pigs after African swine fever was detected in an animal at a slaughterhouse close to the border with China, the second such case in a month in the crowded financial hub.
The animal came from a farm in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong and importation from mainland China has been suspended until further notification, Sophia Chan, Secretary of the city's Food and Health Department said Friday night.
The government-run slaughterhouse in Sheung Shui will be closed for cleansing and disinfection, she added.
Last month around 6,000 pigs were culled after the virus was detected in a pig imported from a farm in the same province. Supply from across the border was temporarily suspended for a week during the disinfection of slaughterhouse.
Pork is a staple of Chinese cuisine, with space-starved Hong Kong importing the majority of what it consumes from the mainland.
After African swine fever spread across more than half of China's provinces last year, Hong Kong banned imports from any Chinese farm where the virus had been detected.
Chinese officials have said hundreds of thousands of pigs were culled in a bid to stop its spread -- an effort that has also seen restrictions on transporting pigs from affected areas.
With some of the world’s most densely populated streets, Hong Kong remains on high alert to diseases. In 2003, some 300 people died during an outbreak of severe acute respiratory disease.
The virus is not dangerous to humans but is fatal to pigs and wild boar.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
HANOI - Vietnam culled a further 500,000 pigs over the past two weeks to tackle an outbreak of African swine fever, taking the total killed so far to 1.7 million, or 5% of the country's herd, the agriculture ministry said on Monday.
Pork accounts for three-quarters of total meat consumption in Vietnam, a country of 95 million people where most of its 30 million farm-raised pigs are consumed domestically.
The virus, first detected in the Southeast Asian country in February, has spread to 42 of the country's 63 provinces, the agriculture ministry's Livestock Production Department said in a statement on its website.
"The African swine fever outbreak is the most dangerous and costly of its kind in the husbandry industry of Vietnam," agriculture minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong said in the statement.
"Though the virus first appeared nearly 100 years ago, there has been no vaccine and no medicine for treating the disease".
China, the world's largest pork producer, which has also been hit by the virus, said on Friday it will start work on clinical trials of a vaccine for African swine fever, which is fatal to animals but not harmful to humans.
Cuong said it is difficult to contain the outbreak given that the virus remains dormant in the environment for a long time and can spread through complex and varied means.
Earlier this month, Vietnam said it will mobilize its military and police forces to help combat the outbreak.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in March advised Vietnam to declare the swine fever outbreak as a national emergency.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SHANGHAI -- A major Chinese food producer said Monday that traces of the African swine fever virus had been found in its frozen dumplings.
China, the world's biggest consumer and producer of pork, has struggled to contain an outbreak of the virus since the first cases were detected last August.
Officials have said hundreds of thousands of pigs were culled in a bid to stop its spread -- an effort that has also seen restrictions placed on moving pigs from affected areas.
Sanquan Food, based in central Henan province, issued a public statement confirming media reports published in recent days that contaminated pork dumplings were detected in two provinces that do not share a border.
The company said suspect batches of dumplings had reached grocery stores, but that it was sealing affected products and cooperating with authorities.
The statement did not mention a broader recall.
Unconfirmed Chinese media reports have said that products manufactured by several other companies also contained traces of the virus.
African swine fever is not harmful to humans but can be fatal to pigs, raising fears for the country's giant pork industry.
But the media reports prompted anger online from Chinese consumers who vented over the latest in a recurring series of product scandals, despite repeated government promises to ensure safety.
Sanquan Food's share price dropped as much as 2.25 percent in Monday morning trading on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
soure: news.abs-cbn.com
* WH Group ordered to shut Zhengzhou plant for 6 weeks
* 2nd outbreak in 2 weeks in China of African swine fever
* Previously undetected in China or East Asia
* Authorities ban movement of pigs, pork in affected area
* Stirs concerns about spread across world's largest pig herd
BEIJING - China has ordered the world's top pork producer, WH Group Ltd, to shut a major slaughterhouse as authorities race to stop the spread of deadly African swine fever (ASF) after a second outbreak in the planet's biggest hog herd in two weeks.
The discovery of infected pigs in Zhengzhou city, in central Henan province, about 1,000 kilometers from the first case ever reported in China, has stirred animal health experts' fears of fresh outbreaks - as well as food safety concerns among the public.
Though often fatal to pigs, with no vaccine available, ASF does not affect humans, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
ASF has been detected in Russia and Eastern Europe as well as Africa, though never before in East Asia. It is one of the most devastating diseases to affect swine herds. It occurs among commercial herds and wild boars, is transmitted by ticks and direct contact between animals, and can also travel via contaminated food, animal feed, and international travelers.
WH Group said in a statement that Zhengzhou city authorities had ordered a temporary six-week closure of the slaughterhouse after some 30 hogs died of the highly contagious illness on Thursday. The plant is one of 15 controlled by China's largest pork processor Henan Shuanghui Investment & Development , a subsidiary of WH Group.
Zhengzhou city authorities have banned all movement of pigs and pork products in and out of the affected area for the same six weeks.
Shuanghui said in a separate statement on Friday it culled 1,362 pigs at the slaughterhouse after the infection was discovered.
The infected pigs had travelled by road from a live market in Jiamusi city in China's northeastern province of Heilongjiang, through areas of high pig density to central Henan. Another northeastern province, Liaoning, has culled thousands of pigs since a first case of ASF was reported two weeks ago.
The pigs' long journey, and the vast distance between the two cases, stoked concerns about the spread of disease across China's vast pig herd - and into East Asia.
"The areas of concern now involve multiple Chinese provinces and heighten the likelihood of further cases," the Swine Health Information Center, a U.S. research body, said in a note.
'A LITTLE SCARED'
As Zhengzhou city froze pig movements, Heilongjiang authorities were also investigating whether the pigs involved were infected in the northeastern province bordering Russia.
Meanwhile comments on the country's Twitter-like Weibo highlighted worries about the safety of eating pork, a staple in China's diet with retail sales topping $840 billion each year. The relationship between people and pigs in China is close, with the Chinese word for "home" made up of the character "roof" over the character for "pig".
Posts expressing concern that infected meat may enter the food stream and fears about whether it is safe to eat pork garnered the most attention.
"A little scared. What will happen if you eat (pork)?" said one poster.
WH Group said on Friday it did not expect the closure of the Zhengzhou slaughterhouse to have any adverse material impact on business, helping its shares rise 1.6 percent after slumping 10 percent on Thursday. Shuanghui shares were up 1.3 percent on Friday afternoon.
The Zhengzhou operation accounts for an "insignificant" portion of WH Group's operations, the company said, adding it does not expect any disruption to supply of pork and related products as a result of the temporary closure. On Thursday, Shuanghui said it had diverted sales orders to other operations.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
