Anti-Covid Measures Send Extra Chill Through Meat, Seafood Imports

Tough restrictions aimed at stopping Covid-19 from entering China on cooled and frozen meat and seafood imports are putting a chill on the sector, leading to higher costs and plunging sales.

Seafood in particular has become a major object of suspicion after imported salmon was cited as a suspected source of a second-wave outbreak at a wholesale market in Beijing in June. That was followed by another outbreak in the eastern port city of Qingdao in September that was also initially blamed on imported seafood.

The regular finger-pointing at imported chilled and frozen meat and seafood has made many Chinese shy away from the products, concerned they could become infected. At the same time, the nation has imposed major new requirements that have led to big delays and driven up the costs of importing frozen meat and seafood by around 5%, some estimate.

“It’s now common to wait an extra 10 to 20 days for goods to arrive,” a worker at a large meat products company told Caixin. “And importers don’t dare to bring in fresh foods like lobsters for fear that they’ll die if they don’t get in.” He added that the combined effects of high freight costs, refusal by many places to receive cold chain goods, and long inspection times have sent imports plunging.

A good indicator of that is frozen fish, one of the few specific frozen seafood and meat categories tracked by China’s customs. After posting year-on-year gains each month in the first half of the year, China’s frozen fish imports suddenly plunged 52% in August, then rebounded slightly to a milder 18% decline in September, only to plunge again by 39% in October, the latest customs data shows.

“We can accept long inspection times,” the worker said. “The key thing is whether the products can get in safely at all.”

Under the current inspection regimen, if a sample of any product tests positive for Covid-19, everything in the cold storage house at the time is sealed off. And because many chilled and frozen products have a limited shelf life, they risk being unsellable if their expiration date passes before they can be cleared and released.

The Covid-19 testing is just one of many layers of added burden placed on importers as Beijing tries to seal off that potential route of entry. Requirements became even more onerous heading into the winter months, as many other parts of the world saw their number of cases skyrocket with the onset of cold and flu season.

China’s Transport Ministry issued two directives in November on measures to be taken to avoid bringing Covid-19 virus into the country with the import of cold chain products. Those included the frequent disinfection of anyone involved in the loading and transport of such items, as well as anyone who had contact with surfaces of items being transported.

From Nov. 16, the port of Shanghai required importers of high-risk cold chain foods to carry out their own inspections during the transport process, and to get certificates showing all products being stored and processed at the port had been tested and disinfected.

Under China’s current requirements, after clearing customs any chilled or frozen meat or fish must be stored at an intermediary warehouse to be disinfected, said Yang Xusheng, China sales head for ocean shipping giant Maersk’s China cold chain business. “The top, bottom, left and right sides of the outer package all need to be disinfected. So a container of goods basically needs about three people working three hours to complete,” he said.

Many Chinese are contributing to the slowdown by favoring domestic products, and Yang predicted the declines in imports will become even sharper if foreign countries don’t bring their local outbreaks under control.

In addition to creating delays, all the required extra measures have added to importers’ costs. One person from the transport industry told Caixin that doing the mandatory disinfection for all six sides of a typical shipping container costs about 600 yuan ($92). Taken with other measures, such as testing for the virus, he estimated all the extra steps raise costs for importers by around 5%.

“If the virus is detected, unfortunately, the entire shipment has to be scrapped, and the importer will still have to bear the processing fee,” he said. “Such additional costs will be incorporated into the sale price accordingly.”

Contact reporter Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)

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