Meat production, including by-products of the first grade totaled to 459,080 tons (up 6.4 per cent) in 2008 in Belarus, according to Meat Russia citing a National Statistics Committee (Belstat) report.

Beef production grew by 2.7 per cent to 163,781 tons, pork production was up 3 per cent to 151,732 tons, and poultry production increased by 16.8 per cent to 128,927 tons.

Sausage product manufacturing in 2008 grew by 10.5 per cent compared to 2007 to 243,121 tons. Cooked sausage manufacturing amounted to 88,933 tons (up 5.8 per cent from 2007), half-smoked sausage production totalled 13,292 tons (up 7.2 per cent), raw smoked, raw air-dried and air-dried sausage output was 13,228 tons (up 7.9 per cent), and cooked smoked sausage production reached the rate of 8,751 tons (up 21.1 per cent).

Pork, beef, poultry and horse meat product manufacturing increased by 35.4 per cent to 33,429 tons. Ready-to-cook meat product manufacturing totalled 70,980 tons (up 14.6 per cent from 2007). Canned meat production grew by 10.8 per cent to 33.8 million standard cans, and edible animal fat production was up 5.4 per cent to 12,940 tons, reports Meat Russia.