19 US Poultry Companies Banned from Exports

RUSSIA - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has announced that 19 US poultry meat companies will be banned from exporting their products to Russia because they had failed health and safety tests.

29 August 2008

2 minute read

A further 29 other companies had been warned to improve their standards or face the same ban, Mr Putin said in his interview with CNN.

Mr Putin said that the economic measures were unrelated to the fight with Georgia - the matter is more from an economic standpoint.

According to Mr Putin, Russia's health and agricultural ministries had randomly tested the poultry products and found them to be full of antibiotics and arsenic.

The list of the US companies first chosen for expulsion hasn’t been promulgated so far. The market players say the lists are revised each year and exclusion of some companies is a common practice. For the first time, however, it was Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that announced the news.

A total 299 enterprises export poultry from the United States to Russia. Of this number, 127 are the poultry processing plants, reports Kommersant. The US suppliers currently control 72 per cent of the poultry export to Russia (over $3 billion), the EU has 14 percent and Brazil has 13 percent.

The size of Russia’s poultry market is estimated at 3.2 million tons with the local suppliers providing 1.9 million tons. The biggest US poultry suppliers are Tyson Foods, Pilgrim`s Pride, Cook Foods, Sanderson Farms, Simmons Foods.