Hong Kong gov’t to build central poultry plant

The government plans to construct a central slaughtering plant to supply chilled freshly slaughtered chicken stored at seven degrees Celsius or below, for consumption within 24 hours. However, it is reported that this has led to an outcry from the catering industry, which warned it would kill their trade in fresh chicken.

According to a report by the county’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department: “We believe that allowing this option will help slaughtering and processing plant, accommodate people’s culinary preference and reduce the impact of central slaughtering to live poultry wholesalers and retailers.”

Catering sector and liberal party lawmaker Tommy Cheung Yu-yan believes that the plan would be “useless” because normal vans do not have facilities to transport chilled poultry. He also said that markets do not want the plan to unfold as they will be deprived of fresh chickens now slaughtered in the market.

“The market people say this will run them out of the markets because citizens want to look at the chicken and see it slaughtered. They also think retailers will corner the market by shipping it to their own stores,” said Cheung, adding that the bird flu is now under control so there was no need for a central slaughtering plant. “This is a waste of resources,” he said
It has been reported that when the facility has been completed, all private slaughtering, processing and selling of live poultry by retailers will be banned.