Zimbabwe imports chicken innards

By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |

Local abattoirs are reportedly being stocked with imported chicken offals despite an abundance of the innards from local producers.

Chicken offals like guts, livers and gizzards have become a favourite with low-income Zimbabweans who find the prices of beef and chicken too prohibitive.

Poultry producers are concerned that unexplained stocks are finding their way to retailers and consumers, thereby threatening the viability of the local poultry industry.

Zimbabwe Poultry Association chairperson, Solomon Zawe, has urged authorities to investigate the issue.

“Concerns have been raised by poultry producers about the presence of suspected imported chicken offals on the market, which may account for the increase of local stocks at abattoirs,” said Zawe.

Poultry production in Zimbabwe plunged by 8 percent in the period up June 2016 due to falling demand in the wake of cash shortages, delays in civil servants’ salaries and competition from lower market producers.

“Production is being reduced in response to the declining demand and already, there are signs that producers are deflocking and reducing point of lay placements,” he said.

“This is reflected in the drop in demand for layer feed as well as a decline in the price of point of lay pullets. Some breeders have also reduced production of point-of-lays and are selling them for as low as $5 per bird,” said Zawe.

Government recently used Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 to ban a broad range of imports that informal traders were bringing into the country for resale.

It is not clear how the chicken innards are finding their way into the country and if they go through required quality control processes. Nehanda Radio