CHINA: Zhongpin expands meat production

By just-food.com | 25 March 2010

Chinese meat and food processor Zhongpin has announced plans to expand and improve production at its pork facility in Anyang in Henan province.

The company is investing around US$6.3m to further improve the plant's pre-cooling room and equipment and to expand the plant's production capacity for chilled pork.

With the expansion, Zhongpin will increase the plant's capacity by 35% to an annual capacity of 85,000 metric tons from the current 63,000 metric tons.

After the expansion, chilled pork will account for about 70% of the plant's capacity, up from the current 60% of capacity.

The four-month project is scheduled to be completed in July this year.

"Our presence in Anyang and the north China market has successfully increased the demand for our products, especially for chilled pork. The improvements we are making this year in our Anyang plant should help meet the rapidly growing demand for high quality chilled pork that we expect in north China over the next several years,” chairman and CEO Xianfu Zhu said.

Zhongpin's Anyang plant began operations in 2007.