China's rejections of meat imports spiked in 2024

Rejections of imported meat by China's customs authority more than tripled in 2024. It is unclear whether problems in meat shipments suddenly increased last year or whether the spike in rejections reflects an effort to bring relief to struggling Chinese meat producers by rejecting imports. 

A compilation of monthly reports of rejected food imports from the Chinese customs web site showed that 778 shipments of beef, pork, chicken, lamb, and deer meat were rejected at China's border last year. The spike in rejections was unusual: China's number of meat rejections had never even reached 300 in previous years (the customs administration took over inspection in a 2018 revamp of border authorities). 

Source: Compilation of monthly reports of rejected food shipments posted on China Customs website.

Rejections increased for each kind of meat, but beef and pork accounted for most of the increase in rejected shipments. China rejected 435 beef shipments, up from 60-to-80 rejections in previous years. Pork rejections increased to 186 in 2024 from about 40-to-70 in previous years. Rejections of chicken posted a smaller increase from 86 to 112 shipments. Rejections of lamb are fewer in number but they have been on a rising trend from 10 in 2019 to 43 last year. 

The rejected shipments by weight totaled 5,633 metric tons, comprising just 0.08 percent of China's 6.7 million metric tons of meat imports in 2024. Rejected pork and chicken shipments included mostly containers of 20-to-27 metric tons while rejected beef shipments were smaller--often 10 to 1000 kilograms. Thus, pork shipments comprised about half of rejected shipments by weight. 

China rejected meat from dozens of countries. Fourteen countries had beef shipments rejected, but Australia had the largest number (144). Of 8 countries with pork rejected, Denmark had the largest number of shipments rejected (101). Brazil had the largest number of chicken shipments rejected, and New Zealand accounted for more than half of rejected lamb shipments.  

Increases in rejections stood out for Australia, European Union countries, Brazil, Argentina, and the USA. The United States had rejections of beef shipments (43), pork (37), and chicken (17). Rejections of Denmark's pork stood out because China had only rejected 10 Danish pork shipments in total over the previous 5 years. Nearly all the rejected Danish shipments came from a prominent company. All the leading meat companies in Europe, North and South America had shipments rejected. 

Source: Compiled from reports on China Customs Administration website.

Only a few shipments were rejected for finding spoiled meat, including many of the rejected U.S. shipments and Russian and Brazilian chicken shipments. Overall, most beef, chicken and lamb shipments were rejected for not having all their documentation in order. Most of the Australian beef rejections were for documentation problems. 

All the Bolivian beef rejections and about 25 Brazilian beef rejections were for detection of a drug used to control ticks. One company told news media that China suspended its Greely, Colorado plant due to detection of the growth compound ractopamine in its shipments, but the two shipments of U.S. beef rejected for ractopamine as reported by China customs listed other companies as the producers. 

In contrast, most of the pork rejections were for detection of an unspecified animal disease, including nearly all the rejections of Denmark's pork. Some Spanish pork was rejected for containing testosterone.

Is China using rejections by customs inspectors to slow down meat imports? China's beef producers have been suffering from steep financial losses due to falling prices over the last two years. The surge in rejections of European pork coincided with China's announcement of an antidumping investigation of European pork and an accusation of overcapacity in European pork industry issued by China in June. News media reported China suspended beef shipments from two U.S. facilities on the same day in May.