The ractopamine-free market

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Even as China ratcheted up its requirements for third-party verification last month, Smithfield Foods, based in Virginia and the largest hog grower and pork-producing company in the world, announced it is well positioned to meet rising demand for third-party certification that its pork exports are ractopamine-free.

The integrator says its Clinton, N.C., plant has been ractopamine-free for a year and its Tar Heel plant, the largest in the world, was to be fully converted by March 1. Combined, these two plants will supply the market with 43,000 hogs a day, sourced from company farms and contract producers, and fed from mills that are free of the controversial beta agonist. Smithfield is touting this as a success of the vertically integrated model of pork production.

Last year, American pork exports to China totalled 355,000 tonnes and were worth US$704 million.

Elanco Animal Health's ractopamine, sold as Paylean for swine, promotes lean muscle growth in the last weeks of the growing phase of a pig. It is approved for use in at least 27 countries, including Canada, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Mexico. It is disallowed by regulators in 80 countries, including the European Union. BP