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A Singaporean food distributor has managed to secure a deal that will bring in 10 times more chilled chicken from Thailand into Singapore, Shin Min Daily News (SMDN) reported.
Malaysia's export ban on chickens to Singapore, which kicked in on Jun. 1, has caused some concern over the supply of fresh and chilled chicken in Singapore.
Singapore imports a third of its chicken from Malaysia.
Up to 75,000 packs of chilled chicken parts a week
CS Tay, a local food distributor, is the only distributor in Singapore authorised to sell chilled chicken from Thailand, according to SMDN.
The distributor's executive director, Marc Tay, 32, said he managed to secure a deal that will enable him to import 10 times his supply of chicken at any time, up to 75,000 packs of chilled chicken parts a week.
Chilled chickens are chickens that have not undergone any freezing process, and according to the secretary of the Poultry Merchants' Association, taste just like fresh chickens.
Tay told SMDN that his company has been supplying S-Pure brand chilled Thai chicken to Singapore since July last year.
Photo via CS Tay website.
Tay said the brand is known for high-quality chicken and is popular in Thailand and Hong Kong. He had also long been in contact with manufacturers in hopes of importing chilled Thai chickens into Singapore.
Singapore only started allowing the import of chilled poultry from Thailand in November 2020, which allowed Tay to finally begin importing these chickens.
Chilled chickens available at Isetan, Cold Storage, with more supermarkets to come
Tay shared that he was in Thailand when Malaysia's chicken export ban was announced.
Hearing the news, he immediately arranged to meet with his Thai suppliers and negotiated a deal after two days of lengthy discussions.
Tay's company was initially only importing 8,000 packs of chilled chicken parts a week from Thailand. After the negotiations, his company can now import up to 75,000 packs of chilled chicken a week -- almost 10 times the initial volume.
The Thai chilled chickens are currently stocked in Isetan and in some Cold Storage outlets.
As the ban comes into effect, the chilled chickens will be made available in all Cold Storage outlets and Giant supermarkets.
They will also be made available at some NTUC Fairprice supermarkets from next week.
The S-Pure brand chickens are currently not sold as whole chickens, but as eight different parts of chicken.
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Top photos via CS Tay website