Poultry imports peaked in 2018, and then dropped steadily until 2022. Chicken makes up about 95% of poultry imports.
The 2023 increase, up 11% to 415 000 tonnes, is off a low base – the 373 000 tonnes of poultry imported in 2022. This is well below the peak import total of 557 000 tonnes in 2018.
Poultry imports in 2023 were valued at R4.775 billion, a 4.6% increase on 2022.
The annual increase was driven by steady rises in imports of offal (up 26%) and mechanically deboned meat (MDM), a paste used to manufacture processed foods. MDM imports rose 19% in 2023.
Offal import volumes have doubled over the past five years, rising from 43 000 tonnes in 2017 to 86 000 tonnes in 2023.
There has, however, been a decrease in the sensitive category of bone-in chicken portions. These imports – leg quarters, thighs, drumsticks and wings – are the ones that do most harm to the local poultry industry, competing with locally produced frozen packs. All of South Africa’s nine anti-dumping duties on poultry imports concern bone-in portions.
Bone-in imports have dropped steadily since 2018, when a flood of imports put the local industry into crisis. Despite a 19.5% monthly increase in December, the total for 2023 was 22% below 2022, which in turn was a 32% decline from 2021.
The four-year decline in bone-in import volumes is shown by the fact that the 2023 total of 71 000 tonnes was less than half of the 163 000 tonnes imported in 2020.
Brazil is the main source of South Africa’s poultry imports. Brazil supplied 77% of imports in December, and 82% for the 2023 year.
