Polish pork returns back to the US market
On October 18th , the United States (US) suspended temporarily an import of pork meat from Poland due to African Swine Fever (ASF). The suspension of import concerned frozen and chilled meat and other pork products coming from Poland.
The US had reservations towards three processing plants that have an export licenses for the US market. These processing plants, owned by Sokołów Podlaski, Animex Food, Łuków, are located on a border of the endangered zones due to the ASF. However, these plants - in accordance with the EC decision on regionalization - are excluded from endangered zones and are only processing meat coming from areas free of ASF which allow them to export.
Thanks to the quick reaction of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as the Ministry of Enterprise and Technology, the US abolished import restrictions. On the 25th of October, the Polish Minister of Agriculture Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski informed that the Polish companies will be able to export back pork meat to US. The longer US ban would had definitely threatened the situation of the Polish pork sector. As a result, 16 Polish processing companies are allowed to export pork meat to the US again. The aforementioned 3 processing plants can only export thermally processed pork products.
In the eyes of the Polish Associations of Swine Employers and Producers, maintaining export markets for pig meat for Poland is an important matter generally. The volume of yearly export to the US is around 60 thousands tones. The most exported to the US market are valuable meat products like bacon, ribs or pork neck. The annual value of Polish export to US market is about 163 million euros (according to the Polish Associations of Swine Employers and Producers).