Zambeef-Is Zambian Pull Him Down Syndrome At Work?

By: Shalala Oliver Sepiso

This whole story started last year, it is nasty. As usual the Zambian PULL HIM DOWN IS at work.

Zambeef procures all the products under question from sources with very high Veterinary and Food safety standards.

For your information, Zambia’s cattle have endemic disease such as Liver fluke (parasitic), FMD (Foot and Mouth Disease), CBBP ( Bovine Pneumonia). Consequently, GRZ health inspectors expressly require Zambeef to destroy all the affected parts (like offals). The company has to follow the destruction requirements and we do. For example, in our Mongu and Namwala Abattoir, out of 1000 cattle slaughtered, we only yield an average of 100 livers i.e. 90% are thrown away. As a business, we had to find a replacement source especially that our market demand is regional not just national; we sell a lot to Congo, Tanzania , Malawi etc and we are spreading to Nigeria and Ghana.

To think that beef livers and trotters are thrown away in USA and, EU and Zambeef simply picks them as some accusations are going is crazy and a lazy way of thinking. We import from same abattoirs just like as Russia, Japan and China do. In fact our uptake of this is low at a paltry is 0.01 % with Asia buying the bulk. Think of it this way, how many of you drive cars that have been “virtually thrown away” in Japan? Those $500 cars? I do! Are they thrown away or they are just not needed? Similarly, Europeans do not eat trotters. But here it is food. Europeans and Americans use maize as stock feed for cattle and pigs but here it’s our staple food. Europeans and Japanese, “throw away” cars, clothes, underwear, trotters, offals, we have use for them here.

Russia, China imports over 15,000 containers of these meat products. We only import around 200 as a REGION. Not as Zambia. South Africa is largest importer from this same source. So how can it be that only Zambeef consigned beef have these foreign and unwanted chemical materials? We run a huge cold chain. And so we do not need any preservatives for our fresh meat. It does not make economic and scientific sense to do so. How many of you add preservatives to frozen chicken or meat at home? For what? It’s frozen.

Europeans do not eat offals and hooves a lot. They either make tallow, buttons or glue out of them. We import them and pay very high duty for these. They are not thrown away or given out for free because they are unwanted. In fact the demand for these products is very high in the Far East. Nothing is thrown away in Western abattoirs; they recycle unwanted parts and also wastes or they sell to these to those that eat like the Chinese, Africans and Russians.

As for this embalming issue: Embalming, this confusing to me too. I do not understand how any one can think of this. If Zambeef was doing this at all, many of us would not be working for them (ethically speaking). Accusations were that Formalin was being used for this purpose and was found in imported beef products. Again , I dealt with a lot of Formalin for all my University laboratory life. It is nearly impossible to stand the smell of formalin; it has a burning sensation and is poisonous. A lot of people would be dead by now if they took beef with formalin. The LD 50 (lethal dose) of Formalin is very high. This Formalin being proclaimed was banned a long time ago in EU and the West, so how can this be that companies selling us meat in EU are using a banned substance and it passes inspections in the West?

Anyway, lets wait for the samples taken by Government to be verified. We need a scientific answer. The samples being published are being shielded in secrecy, this is unethical. Why cant Zambeef be allowed to challenge the results?

To sum up, there is a big story behind this bordering on PHD. We are somehow lucky being a public entity. We would been accused of Satanism or witchcraft to ensure the business fails.