The SA Poultry Association (SAPA) says the idea that anti-dumping duties push up the retail price of chicken is a misperception.
Consumers don’t benefit from cheap dumped chicken imports, SAPA’s Izaak Breitenbach told Smile FM. “There is a perception that if we do not have tariffs, then consumers will get cheap chicken. Unfortunately, that is not true.
“We do not see very cheap imported chicken in the market place. We see imported chicken at the exact same price as local chicken, because all products sell at market price.”
FairPlay has been speculating for years that chicken importers must be making fat profits because low import prices are not passed on to consumers.
They have never denied it, nor have they responded to suggestions that they could bring retail prices down by taking less profit.
Clearly the suspension of anti-dumping duties for the next year will mean fatter profits for them, not lower prices for the consumer.
Imported chicken arrives at our ports after spending a long time at sea. It can then be defrosted, sorted, and often brined before being refrozen (or sometimes sold as fresh). This degrades the quality of the product, which can be sold for the same price as local chicken.
“Spare parts” are being dumped in South Africa
Marthinus Stander, CEO of Rainbow Chicken, has reminded South Africans that the chicken portions being dumped in South Africa – leg quarters, thighs and drumsticks – are the unwanted “spare parts” left over after they have sold off premium cuts.
Speaking on Radio 702 he said the developed world wanted the white chicken meat “and the rest is considered spare parts”.
The price of those chicken products on the international market therefore had nothing to do with the cost of production, “it is merely the price internationally of spare parts of chicken”.
As South Africans loved those bone-in portions “that makes us an ideal dumping ground” he said.
