The consumption of fresh chicken is the trend of the times.

In May this year, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, first launched the "centralized slaughtering, cold chain distribution, and fresh listing" of poultry in the four districts under its jurisdiction, which means that the 394 poultry stalls in the pilot areas of Guangzhou can no longer carry out live chicken slaughtering trading. to sell fresh chickens instead. For the Guangzhou market, which has long been used to slaughtering and selling live poultry, closing the live poultry market and promoting the sale of fresh chickens tests the capital and ability of suppliers, wholesalers and retailers to change the mode of production on the one hand, and challenges the long-standing consumption habits and dietary traditions of ordinary citizens on the other.

Suppliers: facing unprecedented challenges

At about 4 o'clock every morning, the fresh chickens from the slaughterhouse of Guangdong Tiannong Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tiannong Company) are sent to the Guangzhou transit center by the cold chain distribution system, and then sent to the terminal retail outlets. Before that, broilers have to go through unified slaughtering and processing procedures, such as bloodletting, depilation, cutting, pre-cooling, packaging and so on. Tiannong Company, Guangzhou Jiangfeng Industrial Co., Ltd., and Guangzhou Baixing Animal Feed Co., Ltd. are the three designated poultry slaughtering and processing companies in Guangzhou pilot poultry "centralized slaughtering and fresh listing". Tiannong Company has a poultry slaughtering and processing plant in line with EU standards, with a daily slaughtering capacity of 100000 chickens.

However, the first person who "eats crabs" always faces unprecedented challenges. Due to the generally lukewarm response from the market, sales of fresh chickens have been in the doldrums. "We can still sell 2000 to 3000 a day in the first week of the trial, but after a month, the decline in sales is obvious, and now the daily sales have slipped to 300 to 3000." Wei Zhuangli, executive director of Tiannong Company, told reporters.

Tiannong's experience is not alone. At the beginning of the implementation of the poultry fresh sales policy, the average daily sales of fresh chickens in Guangzhou was about 4000, but by the end of July, that number had dropped to about 2500.

Although it is difficult to get off to a difficult start, some enterprises are still eager to try. At the end of June, Guangzhou identified the second batch of pilot fresh poultry slaughtering enterprises, which are mainly engaged in poultry breeds such as chickens, ducks, geese and pigeons. The increase of pilot enterprises is expected to enrich the variety of fresh poultry and prepare in advance for the promotion of fresh poultry in the city in October.

Retail stall owner: dismal operation waiting for subsidy

"in the past, if you slaughtered yourself, you could save NT $3 in slaughtering fees, but now not only do you have to pay more for slaughtering and distribution, but customers also don't buy things because they think things are expensive." At Long John Market, Liwan District, Guangzhou City, Mr. Huang, the owner of broiler stalls, said. In the past, the owners of chicken stalls were slaughtered and sold on the spot. Now unified slaughtering, cold chain distribution, the purchase cost of a chicken will increase by about 7 yuan. However, citizens are still unable to adapt to the meat quality, taste and price of fresh chickens, and the business of pilot stalls cannot sell from dozens of chickens a day to ten a day.

In addition to the purchase cost, retail stall owners also feel pressure on the cost of transforming the stall. According to the transformation standard of the pilot market stalls of fresh poultry in Guangzhou, the specification of the sales stalls of fresh poultry is "one room, one cabinet, one exhibition stand". In order to meet the preservation standard of fresh chickens, stall owners need to equip their stalls with at least one freezer, and the cost ranges from several thousand yuan to 10,000 yuan.

In order to boost the confidence of fresh poultry sellers, in June this year, Guangzhou issued detailed rules for the distribution of pilot subsidies for terminal sales of fresh poultry on the market, including: the pilot market applied for a subsidy for upgrading and upgrading of stalls based on the declaration materials before September 5. each stall subsidy is 9000 yuan, and the cold storage equipment configuration fee is 11000 yuan. If the operators of the original live poultry stalls registered on May 5 in the pilot market have been transferred to fresh poultry for more than 60 days before September 30, combined with the effect of the transfer, an one-time business guidance subsidy of 4000 yuan can be given instead of awards.

Consumers: active consumption still needs to be promoted

In Guangdong, there has always been a saying that "no chicken can make a feast". Chicken occupies a very important position in the diet of Cantonese people. For Cantonese who have always pursued "fresh" taste in cooking, live chicken is an indispensable raw material.

According to a survey released in March by the Guangzhou Social situation and Public opinion Research Center, 66% of the respondents were worried about the poor quality of live chicken after the market did not sell live chicken.

In addition to worrying about the quality of fresh chickens, price factors also affect consumers' choices. "now the slaughtered live chicken costs more than ten yuan per jin, and the cheap fresh chicken costs more than ten yuan per catty, and a whole chicken costs more than ten yuan more than the live chicken." Said Aunt Cao, who lives in Liwan District, Guangzhou.

In fact, suppliers of raw chicken have already taken measures to deal with the quality problems that consumers are generally worried about. There is a QR code on the packaging of fresh chicken products supplied in the market, and you can scan the phone to get information about the chicken, including chicken growth days, slaughtering time, fresh-keeping time, and so on.

In response to the market reaction, Zheng Huidian, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture, said that if unit canteens and supermarkets are taken into account, the sales of fresh chickens already account for 40% of Guangdong's poultry consumption, and for individuals, consumption habits still need to be cultivated. Zheng Huidian gave an example. The supply of fresh chickens in Hong Kong now accounts for 70% to 80% of the market supply, and this achievement has been implemented for 10 to 20 years.

"the sale of raw and fresh chickens is a trend, which is very effective in blocking the spread of the disease." Zheng Huidian said that the prevention and control of "H7N9" after the fresh poultry market is effective.