Reasons Why Bacon Import Increases Each Year

According to Russian State Statistics Committee (Goskomstat), 47,300 tons of strategic product were imported last year which makes more than 40% compared to 2008. Things going on this way, won’t ‘the national product’ turn out to be a delicatessen for Ukrainian people, like shrimp or a pineapple?

Mikhail Zhornik, State Institution head of agro-industrial development, says that imported bacon isn’t sold as a separate product because it undergoes food processing. Meat processing factories prefer imported foodstock of a poor quality, as it is cheaper than home one. Thus, ‘foreign’ bacon scraps are imported for 2-3 hrn/kg, while Ukrainian bacon costs 15-15,5 hrn/kg in bulk.

Moreover, since January 1 meat processing factories are following newly adopted DSTU terms, when they have to put more natural meat into sausage products (instead of soya, starch, various food additions). That is the reason why the price for a milk sausage grows as twice as high. ‘When the foodstock is cheaper, it’s more convenient for sausage makers’, says Mikhail Ivanovich. According to him, home large-scale pig-breeding farms are specialized mainly on meat breed of pigs, as meat is as more expensive than bacon as one and a half. But farmers take ‘the national product’ to meat processing factories for food processing as well. But on sale we had and have the possibility to observe bacon from private farms which prepare it according to our traditional technology.