Paraná foresees expansion of the pork market – 04/21/2023 – Market

With the expansion of slaughterhouses, and clinging to an expectation of opening new export markets, Paraná tries to fight for more space in pig farming, a sector that in Brazil is currently led by Santa Catarina. Paraná is at the top of the national ranking when it comes to chickens, but pork production in the neighboring state represents almost 30% of the Brazilian market, according to the most recent figures from the IBGE. Paraná is in second place, with a share of approximately 20%.

Paraná’s biggest bet now is related to the installation of a new Frimesa unit in the city of Assis Chateaubriand, in the west of the state – the inaugurated slaughterhouse is among the largest in Latin America and started operating in recent weeks. The investment was around R$ 1.4 billion. Other brands from Paraná, such as Alegra and Coopavel, have also made recent investments – in the calculation of the government of Paraná, pork production should have a growth of 8% to 10% in this year of 2023.

“We want to be more aggressive in the sale of pork. We will continue to maintain the footprint of our chicken production, which is great, and we are also qualifying the milk to go to the world. But our pork production is growing, it has quality and sanitary seal. Now we need to exercise more commercial skills”, evaluates the state secretary of Agriculture and Supply, Norberto Ortigara.

Paraná received international recognition from the OIE (World Organization for Animal Health) as an area free of foot-and-mouth disease without vaccination 2 years ago. Without the sanitary seal, Paraná was prevented from trying to enter almost two thirds of the world pork market. For Santa Catarina, the international certificate arrived in 2007.

The international seal is considered a milestone for producers in Paraná, but opening up the market, recognizes Ortigara, is not a quick process. Paraná already exports pork to more than 30 countries, but the dispute is now for the so-called “big markets”, such as Japan, South Korea and Mexico, which, according to the sector, pay a better value for the product.

“World trade is a rough game. These countries have trade agreements with countless countries that we, Brazil, unfortunately do not have. But we want to break this logic”, says Ortigara, adding that, with the war in Ukraine, and the dismantling of production chain, there was a search for “places that are potentially stable, reliable in the long term”.

Last month, the governor of Paraná, Ratinho Junior (PSD), led an international delegation to Japan and South Korea, to negotiate the opening of the meat market in Paraná. “There are two countries with their own qualification requirements. Everything has a protocol. It starts with questionnaires that the two countries exchange, the Ministries. But we invite them to get to know the plants in Paraná. In the future they should send auditors to look at the issue of biosafety”, says Ortigara.

Entrepreneurs from Paraná assess that the moment is especially favorable for the consumption of pork meat, with the increase in the price of beef and a reduction in the cost of production of pork meat – the grains started to drop after two years of increase and the feeding of the animals usually represent up to 80% of the total cost. On the other hand, there are also complaints about the lack of personnel to carry out inspections at slaughterhouses and a general assessment that there is a slowness in bilateral agreements.

Frimesa’s chief executive, Elias José Zydek, points out that the lack of qualified federal inspectors to carry out inspections at production units has been an obstacle to the sector’s growth and criticizes the federal and state governments.

“What’s the use of doing international missions, to China, Asia, taking businessmen, if the Ministry doesn’t have people to carry out inspections? It’s absurd that politicians go around the world trying to encourage exports if they don’t have the slightest condition to have an inspector working . It’s a real delay,” he says.

Headquartered in Medianeira (PR), Frimesa is made up of five cooperatives (Copagril, Lar, C.Vale, Copacol and Primato) and has six industrial units. The new plant, in Assis Chateaubriand, is scheduled to reach 15,000 pig slaughters per day by 2028. By the end of 2023, the goal is to reach an average of 7,500 animals/day.

“We visualize a positive scenario for pork in the world, based on the competitiveness we have in relation to production costs. We have grains, technology, genetics, industry. And there are opportunities in the world: Europe is reducing its production, there is progress of opening markets. But there is a bureaucracy of the Ministry and the state government along with international protocols. And that does not depend on us, on the private initiative. We need more objective and quicker actions”, charges Zydek.

Other entrepreneurs in the sector make a similar assessment. “We still haven’t reaped the fruits of this sanitary status [de dois anos atrás]. Because it goes through two moments. One is for the OIE to declare Paraná as a free area. The second step is the markets that require this status by recognizing the state as such”, says Luiz Otavio Morelli, executive manager of Alegra, a company from Paraná that operates in the pork industry.

In 2023, Alegra has already scheduled to export to 32 countries, but the main destinations are still Hong Kong, Uruguay, Singapore, Argentina and Vietnam. “And we won’t have difficulty supplying quality products to the big markets, like Mexico, South Korea and Japan. Our industrial yard is very modern. Paraná has everything to reach the level that SC has today, but we need to accelerate “, says Morelli.

Alegra now has a refrigerating unit, located in Castro (PR), with a slaughter of 3,500 pigs/day. It also has two distribution centers, one in São José dos Pinhais, in the Curitiba region, and another in Barueri, in greater São Paulo, which opened earlier this year.

According to Morelli, Alegra expects to expand the slaughter volume by 15% in 2023. The company also intends to increase the slice of processed products based on slaughter processing. “We want to grow in the higher value-added lines, with cooked, smoked, ham, charcuterie in general, and premium in natura items”, he anticipates.