Customs bureau suspends accreditation of 2 top meat importers

The Customs bureau has suspended the accreditation of chicken and meat importers Batoy Trading, Red Hot Trading and Sacrecoure Commercial. Batoy and Sacrecoure are included in the list of top 10 meat importers in the country.

 

The House of Representatives recently called for an investigation on the Top 10 importers of fats, offal, skin/rind to determine if they are paying their taxes based on the volume of their importation.

 

This had prompted Bureau of Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon to make a directive to review the accreditation of these importers that included its capability and profile in order to verify their authenticity.

 

The Top 10 importers are: Preo Foods Corp., Kitchen Solutions Corp., DPO Philippines Inc., Fairfield Import Export and Trading Inc., MTDM Trading, MPP Meat Import Corp., Batoy Trading, Sacrecoure Commercial, First Maestro Foodservice Company, and All Meat Foods International Trading.

 

Interim Customs Accreditation Registration, or ICARE, chief lawyer Rhea Gregorio said the three importers misrepresented themselves and failed to comply with the bureau’s legal requirements.

 

“After reviewing them, we found out that they were not able to comply with the requirements such as having their own cold storage facility and warehouses,” said Gregorio. “They declared it in their applications but when we went to the addresses stated in their applications, we found no cold storage facilities.”

 

“Those involved in illegal activities such as smuggling will be blacklisted,” said  Biazon. — DVM, GMA News