Pig blood products return to Singapore restaurants

It added that it is currently in talks with coffee shops and hawker stalls to introduce pork blood curd into retail and hawker dishes, including pig’s organ soup, kway chap, fish soup and more.

CP Foods said it is the first company to introduce the product under current import and regulatory requirements administered by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA).

CP Foods had earlier said on May 14 that it would import 6,000 boxes of pig blood products, with each box weighing 400g.

Each 400g tray will be sold for $6.95, CP Foods had earlier said.

The pig blood curd products will be sold at selected retailers, including Cold Storage, FairPrice, Giant, Home Butchery, Prime and Sheng Siong, said CP Foods then.

In a circular on April 1, SFA said it had approved the import of heat-treated pork blood products from Thailand’s Bangkhla Pig Slaughterhouse after food safety assessments.

The slaughterhouse is the first and only official import application SFA has received since new requirements were established, the agency said on April 3, in response to queries.

Animal blood food products, including pig blood and duck blood, had been prohibited in Singapore since the 1999 Nipah virus outbreak that killed an abattoir worker in the Republic.

Nipah is a zoonotic virus, which means it can spread from animals to humans. It can also spread directly between humans or through contaminated food.

SFA said on May 26, in response to media queries, that importers wanting to import heat-treated pork blood products into Singapore must meet the agency’s food safety requirements.

They must adhere to animal health screening and certification procedures, hygienic blood collection protocols, appropriate processing, handling and storage methods, comprehensive quality control and testing systems, and robust traceability and record-keeping, the agency said.

SFA added that consumers should purchase food products only from licensed retailers and cook them thoroughly.

“They should also adopt good food safety practices by preparing and storing food safely to prevent contamination and storing food outside the temperature danger zone (5 deg C to 60 deg C) when not consuming.”