Industrial slaughtering of pigs at Sagri factory. Photo nld.com.vn

HCM CITY – Since April, HCM City has officially converted to a modern industrial slaughter model, but currently these facilities are operating below capacity and suffering losses.

The city is replacing slaughterhouses that manually kill animals with an aim to strictly control food quality.

The city has opened two new modern slaughter facilities in Củ Chi and Hóc Môn districts, bringing the total number of modern slaughterhouses to five facilities.

According to statistics of the Department of Livestock Production and Veterinary Medicine of the City, after the City officially converted to industrial pig slaughter for four days, output reached from 5,400 to 5,800 heads per day, or an average of 5,568 heads per day, an increase of 339 per cent compared with statistics from one week in mid-March, showing that traders have actively converted.

However, there is a concern that both of the two new facilities and three previously operated facilities, including the Sagri, Vissan and Lộc An slaughter plants, are operating below capacity. Meanwhile, every day more than 1,000 pigs are transported to the provinces for manual slaughter and then transported to the City for consumption.

In addition, in order to encourage traders to switch to a modern slaughter model, modern slaughterhouses are applying a manual slaughter price of VNĐ40,000 (US$1.7) per head. Meanwhile, to break even, the lowest industrial slaughter price must be VNĐ75,000 (US$3) per head.

That causes modern slaughterhouses to face heavy losses. If this situation persists, these new facilities are at risk of having to close after a few months of operation.

Investors in industrial slaughterhouses believe that the City government must soon have a solution to prevent pork being manually slaughtered in other provinces from coming to the City, or require that meat also be slaughtered industrially.

Nguyễn Thị Hồng Thắm, Director of An Hạ Service Company Limited, the investor of a modern slaughterhouse in Củ Chi, said that to invest in a modern facility with a capacity of 3,200 heads per day, she had to invest VNĐ700 billion. Meanwhile, in other provinces, she only needs to invest VNĐ7 billion for manual slaughter with equivalent capacity. Therefore, it is necessary to have a supportive solution from the City, otherwise there will be long-term losses because the factory is having to support the price for traders by applying a price equal to the price of manual slaughter.