Brazil has developed a new and flourishing agricultural export market – the sale of cattle gallstones to Hong Kong and other Asian markets.
The gallstones are “worth twice as much as gold”, the Wall Street Journalreported.
The gallstones are sold mainly to Hong Kong, where they are mixed into a pill believed to counter the onset of strokes.
Hong Kong’s imports of cattle gallstones have almost tripled in value to $218.4 million in 2023 from $75.5 million 2019, though researchers believe the actual size could be much larger. Brazil was the top supplier of stones to Hong Kong in 2023.
José de Oliveira, Chief Executive of Oxgall, a Brazilian gallstone trading company, said the quality – and price – of gallstones varies wildly, with chestnut brown rocks considered the purest.
“On average, we pay between $1,700 and $4,000 an ounce,” he said. That means a single gallstone can be worth more than all the meat on a cow.
The firm buys the stones from slaughterhouses and farmers, often transporting them by plane inside Brazil to avoid highway heists, before vacuum packing them and sending them to Asia, he said.
Trade in the small rust-coloured rocks has also flourished underground, says the Wall Street Journal, “with dealers dodging taxes and regulations, and armed gangs emerging to hunt down the treasure”.
