Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi and two major meat products manufacturers – Itoham Foods and Yonekyu – will establish a joint venture with China’s largest food company COFCO next month.

The total investment will be about CNY10 billion (US$1.54 billion), Mitsubishi told just-food. The company will comply with Japanese quality control standards, said a Mitsubishi spokesman.

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“We will introduce Japanese standards and the advanced meat processing technology to the JV to provide safe meat products to the Chinese consumer.”

He said the investment would finance building new meat farming and processing centres in China. “By 2017 the JV is expected to have 12 farms and 11 processing centers, reaching annual sales of CNY18.1 billion [USD2.8 billion],” he said.

Currently, COFCO has five farms and four meat processing centers, generating sales of CNY2.3 billion (USD355.5 million) in 2010. Chinese consumers ate 79.2 million tonnes of meat in 2010, up 3.6% from 2009, said China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

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