MBM feed stopped at Vietnamese border
Over 70 containers of meat and bone meal (MBM), intented to use as cattle feed have been detected and denied entry at Vietnam’s customs.
Dau Ngoc Hao, deputy head of the National Animal Health Department, said
thanks to information from Indonesia, the containers – from Spain, Italia,
Germany, Austria and France – were found and forced to be re-exported from both
the HCMC and Hai Phong ports.
Ho Chi Minh City alone this year has rejected
clearance to 60 containers of MBM suspected to be made from bones of cattle
infected with mad cow disease.
Freely traded
In most
places, MBM – a powder-like brown food is no longer allowed in feed for ruminant
animals as it is thought to be responsible for the disease – also known as
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) – though it is used as a low-cost meat in
dog food and cat food.
It can be freely traded within the EU, where it is
often burned to generate energy. MBM is produced from unusable scraps left over
when animals are butchered and heated in the rendering industry.
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