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Home / Meatco to ship first beef consignment to US
Meatco to ship first beef consignment to US
2018-06-29Staff Report 2 Staff Reporter WINDHOEK - Meatco is expected to ship its first consignment of beef to the United States of America (US) by the end of July 2018. Meatco’s Executive: Marketing and Sales, Cyprianus Khaiseb told the new US Ambassador to Namibia, Lisa Johnson who was on a familiarisation visit to the Meatco Plant on Monday, 25 June 2018. The visiting delegation were told that labels for export to that country and price negotiations with logistics ship-liners are in place and currently underway. Namibia was granted access to the American market in 2016, but was waiting for labelling approval to start its beef exports. Under the US export rules, Namibia is eligible to export to the US boneless (not ground) beef raw products such as primal cuts, chucks, blade, and beef trimmings. Khaiseb, also gave a presentation on the company’s business overview, highlighting aspects such as governance at Meatco, composition of revenue, production operations and on the company’s famous corned meat brands like Texan and Eloolo with approximately 18 million cans produced annually. Furthermore, he shared Meatco’s involvement in the Northern Communal Area (NCA), emphasising Meatco’s strategy of catering for all Namibian producers throughout the country. Now more than ever the government and the private sector needs to work together and collaborate on practical initiatives which could create employment as fast as possible in the short and medium term to save the local economy from drowning and pushing more people into poverty. In times like these, policymakers should focus and prioritise those “low-hanging fruit” initiatives which make economic sense and have great potential to create employment. One such initiative is to stimulate poultry production in the country. Poultry farming comes with untapped business opportunities carrying great potential to create employment across the entire value chain and consequently drive rural industrialisation. The poultry industry forms an integral part of the Agro - processing sector in Namibia. This sector offers significant potential to increase value addition, to create jobs, income and export opportunities to enhance food security and reduce dependence on imports and hence, has been prioritised by government through various policy initiatives. Presently, the sector unfortunately faces many constraints across the whole value chain which requires systematic planning from both government and private sector in order to develop a robust and sustainable sector which can positively grow the sector and the economy at large. 2018-06-29Staff Report 2
