Workers of Bengal Meat Processing Industries Ltd, the lone and pioneer processed halal meat exporter and domestic supplier, are processing meat at the factory plant. “We have a huge market for processed halal meet mainly in Middle East and Southeast Asia. But we are failing to tap the potential as we cannot penetrate into their markets due to some legal barriers,” says the CEO of the company. Photo: Bengal Meat

Bengal Meat Processing Industries Limited, the lone and pioneer processed halal meat exporter and domestic supplier, has almost trebled its export growth in a span of nine months.
The trend reflects the sharp rise in demand for processed meat in Bangladesh at a time when consumers have become increasingly concerned by reports of food adulteration.
The company started exporting about 3 tonnes of processed halal mutton a week to Dubai in May 2007, but now it exports 9 tonnes of mutton a week.
Besides, since September 2007, the Bengal exported 12.5 tonnes of beef to Kuwait per week, but now its weekly beef export to the country has reached 25 tonnes, according to the company officials.
“We have been getting huge response from Kuwait and from the next week we will double our export to the country with sending 50 tonnes of halal beef to the country per week,” Mostafizur Rahman, chief executive officer (CEO) of Bengal Meat, said.
The business entity, which now requires 1,600 to 1,700 cows and 2,200 goats every month to meet the growing demand in both foreign and domestic markets, could also expand its export 20-25 times if the government had extended proper support, its officials claimed.
“We have a huge market for processed halal meat mainly in Middle East and South East Asia. But we are failing to tap the potential as we cannot penetrate into their markets due to some legal barriers,” Rahman added.
Dwelling on the barriers they are facing, he said being an exporting country Bangladesh has no certification from any other importing countries than Kuwait and Dubai. Such certification from any importing country is mandatory for an exporting country, as the country concerned is to satisfy the importer that the product exported does not contain any hazardous elements and germs.
“As the respective ministries of those particular countries issue export permission, everyone except the government has a very little role to play in this regard”, said Rahman.
Echoing his boss's view on the limitation to get such export permission, Mohammad Jalaluddin, assistant manager (Marketing and Sales Support) of Bengal Meat, said, "Despite our ability and growing market demand, we are unable to go for market expansion."
Meanwhile, the meat processor is eyeing to grab the Malaysian market in two or three months as a team from that country will visit Bangladesh soon to asses the standard the Bengal Meat follows in processing the item.
“Only four-five markets are enough to export all of our products. But those are yet to be explored," Mostafizur Rahman said, urging the government to resolve the issue.
Officials said the company now has a capacity of processing 20 tonnes of meat every day and 250 people are now working with the company.
They also said that they maintained the Australian standard in processing meat. Currently, Brazil, China, India and Australia are the main suppliers of processed meat.
Besides exporting meat to the international market, the company has also concentrated on the local market with supplying around 2-3 tonnes of meat a day and is expecting a supply of 10 tonnes a day shortly.
Now around 1,068 shops and business entities, including five star hotels, super shops and chain stores are the main consumers of processed meat of the company.
People think processed meat is very pricey, but Bengal Meat takes only Tk10 more than the market rate of common meat.
As buying and selling of processed meat remains a very new concept in Bangladesh, the company is finding it difficult to convince shoppers about the item.
But the scenario is changing, the company offuicials said.
“In the beginning our marketing and supply chain officials could hardly get order for more than five hundred kgs a day. But now we have reached 3 tonnes and it will certainly increase in coming days,” said Jalaluddin.
About the meat quality the officials said they got the supply from their selected agents who collect cattle from different places of the country.
“We have reached an agreement with our suppliers that if we find any hazardous disease in the supplied cattle they are bound to get the cattle back,” Jalaluddin said.
The officials added that the supply chain of cattle of the country is not that much good as the practice of farming cattle for non-milking and non-cultivating purposes is very new.
“But this culture are developing in the country as recently some farms have sprang up in the norther region who exclusively rear cattle to supply us,” the Bengal Meat CEO said.
On the business potential in the sector, he said,“ We have a huge international market and we are in need of more investment in the sector.”
He, however, urged the government to withdraw duty on importing live animal for export purpose, as finally meat export will generate more income.
Presently, Bengal Meat is enjoying 20 per cent incentive on export, but they face hardship as such incentive is given against opening L/C only.
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