Following up on Sindicator’s last episode about Food Security in China, let’s look at how food security and food safety go hand in hand. Simply put: security is about quantity, while safety is about quality. But let’s be real, when we talk about China, we’re always talking about quantity. And quality of that much quantity is difficult to oversee, especially in the context of MEAT.
Recently, China has seen an unparalleled increase of demand for animal products, leading to a meatier Chinese diet. How much meatier? Well, since 2012, China ranks as the No. 1 meat consumer in the world. The country now eats a quarter of the world’s supply, or 71 million tons a year. For you bacon freaks: more than half of the 107 million tons of pork eaten worldwide were consumed in China. Mmmm… bacon.
The rise in demand has been a big topic in food security talks, and has been met with a lot of outsourcing, exemplified by these mega-value “Meal Deals”:
- The Smithfield-Shuanghui pork production deal came to a whopping $4.7 billion; it was the largest buyout of an American company in history.
- Argentina and Brazil have reshaped their landscapes to grow soy feed for China’s livestock.
- New Zealand milking its FTA with China to provide dairy to its new No. 1 importer.
- Australia’s landmark deal in 2014 promises a million live beef cattle valued at more than $1 billion to be shipped to China, where they will be slaughtered and eaten.
And from that great circle of life that your hanbao deluxe sprung, there is a lot of potential for error in the logistics chain. Meaty food scandals include:
- Shuanghui was found using illegal additives such as clenbuterol in their pork. Oh, and maggots. Also there were some maggots.
- Husi Food Co, a unit of American OSI group, was videoed reusing expired meat, and meat that had fallen to the factory floor.
- In 2013 16,000 pigs were found floating in Shanghai’s Huangpu river, in a fantastically dark Porkpocalypse.
A reason why much of China’s animal product supply comes from abroad is because safety standards are more developed in other countries. Another reason is because China only has 12% of the world’s arable land, which is not enough to support the livestock needed to feed 1.3 billion people. This means the most carnivorous country (by volume) is getting the meat sweats in maintaining viable food security policies. Can’t wait to see what this year’s No. 1 document has to say about the situation.
It makes no sense to me that Brazil and Argentina are providing feed for livestock inside China.
Dudes I just checked your Alexa rankings. You don’t compute, your readership is too small. Anyone can check just go to http://www.alexa.com
No-one reads Beijing Cream anymore. You are soooo 2012. Sorry to break it to ya but it’s true.
Beijing Cream always was an unmoderated cess pool of nastiness towards others. Now I guess the inevitable is happening. Uninterested owner and no moderation. This site is effectively dead.
Peking Duck has gone as well. These blogs just start in a blaze of notoriety usually by slagging off some well known expats to boost their profiles then fade into a whimper when they run out of ideas and commitment. RIP Beijing Cream. Sometimes you were funny but mostly, yeah you were cunts to people.
I’ll admit it now…I NEVER had ANY talent and I’m a pathetic douchebag…
Lao Wai Comic Guy was sometimes good. But a mere pimple in the sea of douchery that made up most of Anthony Tao & RhZ comments and headlines on Beijing Cream most of which involved swear words. I went off Tao as an ego maniciac twat when he put that photoshopped image of himself instead of Mao in a photo of Tianenmen.
Maybe the comic guy can join Lost Laowai although Ryan also seems to be struggling for content these days. These angry expat sites are all the same, noisy and rude. They never last.
Ii heard on the well advised grapevine this last 3 days from various folks those leaving debts behind rumors where true. Anthony Tao has just fucked off leaving a bunch of unpaid money to a hole bunch of people in China including some writers here and an unmoderated website and he’s not coming back.
I heard same. Anthony Tao owes a lot of money around town. It keeps coming up I spoke to Great Leap Brewing as well they had events there it seems Anthony blagged a couple of evenings and never paid and that crap event they did in Tianjin last summer STILL people waiting to be paid it appears he’s taken the money and fucked off and left a shit lot of unpaid bills. I heard some pregnant local chick also involved he just left her and he is back in CA and she is 7 months gone in Tai Rou. Phone numbers everything, emails no answer…
Yeah me too. I can’t get hold of him for a week. All phones emails dead.
It seems Anthony Tao has left the building.
With debts and pregnant women left behind.
Part of me admires that.
Yup it seems he’s done a runner all right.
Once a piece of shit, always a piece of shit. Anthony Tao was nothing until he hit on the not so smart idea of slagging off prominent expats on his scummy website. Look where it got him. Shit.
Anthony Tao was a self-promoting rampant egotist who thought he was superior to anyone else. Ergo the photos of him posing as a Chonest Emperor and the photo of him as Mao at Tiananmen. The typical Chinese-American expat who thinks because he is both he could do better than any of the other expats here and spent time dissing many of them. In actual fact he is a deluded, untalented cunt with a massive Chinese chip on his shoulder. Good riddance.
Roasting prominent expats online and writing nasty shit about them was never really going to be a winning strategy.