BACOLOD City – Due to the lack of a poultry dressing plant in this city, the Association of Broiler Integrators of Negros Occidental is urging the AVM Bernardo Slaughterhouse to establish the same.
According to Hassel Calda, president of the association, they were thankful to the current city administration for calling their attention, which prompted them to take action to make their businesses operate legally.
On Oct. 7, the local government had a dialogue with several backyard dressed chicken distributors in this city after learning that they were operating their business without securing a business permit.
Present during the meeting were the Task Force Botagoy, City Health Office (CHO), City Legal Office (CLO), Business Permits and Licensing Office (BPLO), and other stakeholders.
Calda said the city government has given the dressed chicken distributors 30 days to comply with the guidelines so that they can be issued a temporary permit.
“One of the problems of the distributors in securing the business permit is the accredited poultry dressing plant. Most of the dressed chicken supplied in some public markets here were slaughtered in backyards because the city has no poultry dressing plant,” said Calda.
Calda appealed to the city government to encourage AVM Bernardo Slaughterhouse to build a dressing plant so that they would be given an official business permit.
The AVM Bernardo in Barangay Handumanan is the operator of the city abattoir .
On Oct. 24, joint operatives of the Task Force Botagoy, CHO, CLO, and BPLO confiscated 317 kilos of contaminated dressed chicken from a mini poultry dressing plant in Barangay Mandalagan.
Matin Pinaga, team leader of Task Force Botagoy, said they were conducting an inspection of all the establishments of meat vendors when they smelled a foul odor in the area.
They discovered that the odor came from the dressed chicken placed in an inoperative freezer with ice on top.
The contaminated products were brought to the slaughterhouse and buried.
The owner of the dressed chicken justified that they were about to dispose them and that they were no longer for consumption./PN