Paraguayan Meat Sector Can Meet Us Beef Standards
PARAGUAY – The nation’s beef industry and food safety executives are well placed to begin opening trade opportunities with the United States, according to industry leaders speaking at a seminar on beef meat quality and the requirements of the US market last week.Food quality body, SENASCA (The National Animal Quality and Health Services) has said that the high ratio of cattle to human population, genomic progress in cattle breeding and the good image of the sector leaves Paraguayan cattle was well positioned to meet the vast requirements of the US burger chains.
Dr Fernando, a food microbiologist speaking at a SENASCA seminar said current requirements of the largest US hamburger restaurant is 500,000 tonnes – requiring 5.5 million head of cattle.
Paraguayan food health officials are confident that domestic meat hygiene standards can meat US requirements which although do not need to be identical, the message from speakers at the seminar was that food standards must be of ‘sanitary equivalence’.
In competition with Paraguay, already exporting to the states, are Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Australia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica and Honduras.
TheCattleSite News Desk