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Animal welfare and traceability make Taiwan's No.1 pork

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Animal welfare + traceability = Taiwan's No.1 pork

↑Contract farms working with Sing Gong must also meet animal welfare requirements. (Photo / provided by Sing Gong)

Sing Gong Industrial is one of the very few businesses in Taiwan, China that simultaneously operates pig slaughter, pork cutting and meat processing. Unlike ordinary food factories, whose meat raw materials come from auction markets or are imported from abroad, all of Sing Gong's meat is supplied by long-term contract farms.

Add to that the fastidiousness of Sing Gong Vice Chairman Yang Po-yuan, known as "Dr. Yang," who brought hospital management thinking into meat production and processing. Not only did this leave the quality-demanding Japanese in awe, it also made Sing Gong the first meat processing plant to resume exports to Japan after the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak devastated Taiwan, China's exports.

When most people talk about pig farming and slaughter, images of squealing pigs and streams of feces, urine and blood always come to mind. But stepping into the Sing Gong plant, there is no nauseating stench of blood or pungent smell of disinfectant. What leaves the deepest impression is that on the first floor lobby of the plant building, a sacred and solemn Buddhist hall has been set up, repeatedly playing the chanting of Namo Guanshiyin Bodhisattva.

Yang Po-yuan often mocks himself, saying that he studied medicine and should be saving people, yet he took over the family's pig-slaughtering business and always feels the weight of sin. Because of this, Yang Po-yuan hopes to overturn the outdated stereotype of the pig farming and slaughter industry in most people's minds, raise its professional standards and expertise, and demand that "every employee who applies to work at Sing Gong must first agree not to kick, hit or otherwise humiliate the pigs, or they will be fired without exception."

Recommended reading

Sing Gong Industrial official website
Upstream and Downstream report - Don't let CAS become a talisman for food gangsters
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