Jan 30 2008
Hey, Parts is Parts
Looking for a great snack idea? It probably won’t catch on here, but in China and east Asia, chicken feet have become quite the delicacy. So much so that some countries are finding it a lucrative market. (HT: Turkish Daily News)
Chicken feet now a source of cash
İZMİR – Turkish Daily News
Chicken feet are not generally considered as produce nor consumed in Turkey, but rather than throw them away, companies are making money by exporting them to Far Eastern countries. Turkey’s exports set a new record last year, rising to a total $105 billion last year, and $17 million of this amount came from chicken feet, mostly exported to China.
“Chicken feet are considered as waste in Turkey,” said the president of the Aegean Livestock Fishery Products Exporters’ Association, Sinan Kızıltan. “But now chicken farmers have the opportunity to export these products to Far Eastern countries.” If chicken feet are considered solely as waste and are not exported, disposal costs the producer, said Kızıltan, so it makes even more sense to export.
“By getting rid of our waste in this way, foreign currency is flowing into Turkey. Although we do not hear about anyone eating chicken feet, in China there is huge demand. They eat them like chips.”
CP Group, which started operating in Thailand in 1921 and established the first feed factory in İnegöl, Bursa in 1986, has been exporting chicken feet for the last seven years. Today CP Group has investments in 20 countries and staff numbering over 100,000. The company has a total revenue of $13 billion.
The number of chicken feet exporters in Turkey was very small, with only five or six companies involved, said the general district manager of the CP Standart Food Industry and Trade Inc., Bedri Girit, adding: “We were already aware of the Far East market when other firms discovered it not too long ago. There is a tough competition in the market where only a small number of firms can survive.”
Only the strong survive in the chicken feet industry.
January 31st, 2008 at 13:52 pm
Reminds me of a quote by Prince Philip of England:
“If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”