AR-News: Chinese Ban on U.S. Imports Strands Tons of Chicken Feet at Sea

[Andrew Gach]

March 5, 2004

Dim Sum Emergency: Bird Flu Trips Up Trade in Chicken Feet

Chinese Ban on U.S. Imports Strands Tons at Sea;

HONG KONG -- A new crackdown in trade between the U.S. and China has
stranded an unusual cargo: 16,000 metric tons of chicken feet.

Chicken feet are a popular dish in China, and with no significant demand for
such morsels in the U.S., American poultry producers shipped an estimated
four billion pairs to the People's Republic last year.
But on Feb. 10, China banned U.S. poultry products after some chickens came
down with bird flu in Delaware. That left vessels plying the Pacific Ocean
and elsewhere with no where to off-load millions of chicken feet, sending
importers scrambling to find cold storage facilities, lest they spoil before
China lifts the ban.

U.S. chicken processors such as Tyson Foods Inc., of Springdale, Ark., and
Perdue Farms Inc., of Salisbury, Md., as well as Chinese importers, stand to
lose out on millions in sales. And prices of White Cloud Phoenix Claws, as
steamed feet are referred to on Cantonese menus, are rising in some Hong
Kong restaurants.

Chicken feet are among the handful of goods that China imports from the U.S.
in high volume. Billions of American chickens sacrifice their lower limbs
each year to help slow the expanding Sino-U.S. trade gap. Their appendages
are hawked to Chinese dim sum restaurants everywhere from Hong Kong to
Harbin.

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