A year later, Poultry Industry Master Plan appears to be nothing but old chicken in new packaging

Anthony Clarke, financial and industrial small and medium market cap analyst from SmallTalkDaily, commented a week or so ago that the month-on-month import number of poultry in September would be +18% higher to 44,000 tonnes from the previous month. This was already a startling jump and a continuation of the upsurge in imports after months of declines due to the imposition of the higher poultry import tariff implemented on 13 March 2020 by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.

However, the actual September import number hike turned out to be 27.7% to 47,609 tonnes. On an annual basis between September 2019 and September 2020 the increase was 31.2% or 11,311 tonnes more. The most contentious import category — frozen bone-in — soared by 63.5% to 18,262 tonnes, a month-to-month increase of a whopping 7,091 tonnes.

According to Clark, the import percentage table below clearly details the rise in mechanically deboned meat (MDM) as the polony market resumes after the prior year’s product scare as well as the sharp reduction in frozen bone-in portions due to the higher 13 March tariff to 62%.



Brazil maintained its number one position as top importer in September with a market share of 50.1% or 23,837 tonnes. It imported 69.1% MDM and 9.4% frozen bone-in portions.

To diminish the dominance of Brazilian imports, by way of import protection, and which some advocacy groups such as the Fair Play Movement consider predatory, was one of the key objectives stipulated in the Poultry Industry Master Plan, which was initiated a year ago. 

“It hinges on trade measures such as tariffs to curb the high volumes of predatory imports, much of which are dumped, that have plunged the local chicken industry into crisis, costing thousands of jobs. With a level playing field and fair competition, the SA industry will expand as it replaces significant volumes of predatory imports and then grows further into export markets,” Fair Play wrote on its website on 10 November. 

Clearly, these interventions have not been entirely successful, but Fairplay emphasises that it was “vital that decisive action is taken, as the master plan promises, against “unfair forms of trade and any attempts to dump products in our market”. 

The local industry has applied to renew anti-dumping duties against three EU countries and is considering anti-dumping applications against Brazil and four other EU nations, it adds. 

Meanwhile, the South African Poultry Association (Sapa) issued a press release on 17 November confirming that certain crucial steps had been taken towards enabling more exports of SA chicken. This is according to Izaak Breitenbach, GM of Sapa.

“It is to the credit of Ministers Patel and Didiza that South African chicken products can now be exported to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and hopefully also soon to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere,” he says.

This comes after the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (the department) successfully negotiated a new export certificate, opening up the UAE for exports of poultry products, he confirmed.

The export certificate not only harmonises the required disease-prevention measures, but also the practice of compartmentalisation and the monitoring processes that test for residues of medication used to treat or prevent disease. 

“We are very excited to confirm that the first producer is already exporting products to the UAE and we anticipate market access negotiations to take place with Saudi Arabia in the near future,” he adds. 

The press release further states that steps are also being taken to facilitate exports to our neighbours in the SA Customs Union (SACU) countries. South Africa does have export certificates in place for Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland, but access is restricted in terms of these countries’ quota policy, says Breitenbach. “The expectation is that the SACU arrangements will be smoothed in the near future in terms of the Master Plan to enable more exports,” Sapa concludes. 

While exporting to the European Union is high on the export planning agenda, and the biggest market in the world, and with whom South Africa has a preferential trading agreement in place, not much progress has been made in this regard.

South Africa exports no chicken part or portion into this lucrative market. 

Paul Matthew, CEO of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (AMIE) says that is due to residue restrictions imposed by the region. South African producers pump a lot of antibiotics and other liquid material into their birds, which the EU does not accept,” he says. 

But according to Breitenbach, a gap analysis has, however, already been done to determine the compliance systems that are required for EU exports. “Compartmentalisation will be an important aspect of an EU export agreement, and that has already been addressed by [the department] in negotiations that are under way.” 

Breytenbach was not available to take Business Maverick’s calls, but according to exports statistics from the South African Revenue Service, some of the markets mentioned in Sapa’s press release, including UAE and SADC, are already being serviced, and according to tax statistics have been doing so for years, so it seems that not much has changed or even improved in this regard. The exports per metric ton to various regions are stipulated in the table below.