INTERVIEW: NH Foods to Address Spanish Pork Ban with Substitutes

Tokyo, April 21 (Jiji Press)–Major Japanese meat packer NH Foods Ltd. plans to launch more bacon substitutes to address a shortage of pork belly, a raw material for bacon, triggered by a ban on imports of Spanish pork caused by an African swine fever outbreak, its president, Fumio Maeda, has said. The company is set to roll out new products made of meat other than pork belly as early as this autumn. “We will take the share we can capture,” Maeda said in a recent interview with Jiji Press. Since Japan introduced the ban in November last year, NH Foods has stepped up product development to hedge against soaring pork belly prices. In March, the company launched Schau Slice, a bacon substitute made with minced meat typically used for sausages. Pork belly remains scarce, with inventories likely to “thin significantly as early as July,” he said, underscoring the urgency to develop additional substitutes. The deteriorating situation surrounding Iran has begun to disrupt petroleum supplies, raising the prospect of higher costs for food packaging materials. “We have not yet received any requests” for price hikes from suppliers, Maeda said. “We are anticipating various scenarios,” he said, while declining to elaborate on whether his company would raise product prices. With Japan’s population declining, Maeda indicated his intention to prioritize strengthening the company’s operations in Southeast Asian countries. The company’s sales from its operations in Southeast Asia accounted for about 10 pct of its overall overseas sales, totaling some 190 billion yen in fiscal 2024. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]