Quality and safety
was the biggest challenge for the Chinese industries in the past. Quality and
ingredient scandals specifically related to food such as the 2008 milk scandal,
poisonous Jinhua ham, counterfeit baby formula, and many more in the past
negatively impacted industries and the trust of many international and domestic
buyers, and consumers. However, in recent years the standards of food safety
changed drastically in the country and now the Chinese government continues to
lead with the 12th Five-Year plan listing food safety as a critical and
national task. In the last five years,
much progress has been made and many industries have regained the trust and
customers back both in the domestic as well as international markets.
In November 2019,
China General Administration of Customs appreciated the US confirmation about
the equivalence of China’s poultry supervision to that of the US. The US
Federal Register, an official gazette that has been authorized to publish
public notices on behalf of the US Federal government, released the final
evaluation on China’s poultry meat export to the US, confirming the equivalence
of the two countries poultry meat supervision system. China has a goal of shipping cooked chicken
to the US from as far as 2004. Since then, in addition to submitting detailed
materials related to the supervision and handling of its cooked poultry, China
hosted visiting groups from the U.S department of agriculture. The teams
visited China a total of nine times to inspect and help Chinese export
enterprises wishing to export cooked poultry to the US brings their quality and
safety management in line with the US import requirements.
Apart, from the US
other countries such as Malaysia, Canada, South Korea, and Russia have also
allowed the local Chinese poultry farmer to export because of their
up-gradation in safety and quality standards. In 2017, the Chinese General
Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine managed to
enroll 49 local breeding and processing companies into various international
certification programs such as Good Agriculture Practices, and Good Handling
Practices. These certifications and many other recent quality rules implemented
by the government have allowed Chinese poultry farmers to access markets that
were previously banned. According to industry experts, the recent developments
between the US and China and the strict quality standards imposed by the
Chinese government will further boost the exports of the country’s poultry
industry.