Wild boar meat sold as beef

Wild boar meat sold as beef

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta administration warned shoppers on
Monday not to buy inexpensive wild boar meat which may be sold in
markets as beef.

The meat, believed to have been smuggled in from Sumatra and
to have bypassed inspection authorities, has been passed off as
beef and sold for as low as Rp 14,000 (US$1.50) a kilogram, the
head of the Jakarta Animal Husbandry Agency, Edi Setiarto, said.

In contrast, local beef is sold normally for about Rp 25,000 a
kilogram, while imported beef, mostly from Australia, is quoted
at Rp 20,000.

"The public has to be careful when they find unusually cheap
meat because wild boar meat looks very much like beef. Even a
butcher would have difficulty in distinguishing the two," Edi
said.

"It is usually sold in streets near market places between 11
p.m. and 6 a.m. It (the meat) is packaged in boxes with each
kilogram worth only Rp 14,000," he said during a hearing with the
City Council's Commission B for economic affairs.

Commission secretary Dani Anwar of the Justice Party said he
received information that wild boar meat had also found its way
to areas near the Pasar Minggu market in South Jakarta and Pasar
Senen market in Central Jakarta.

Dani called on the agency, which must certify all meat brought
in from outside Jakarta, to stop the import and sale of wild boar
meat.

He said rumors about the sale of the meat in the last two
months had caused anxiety among residents, particularly for
Muslims who are forbidden by their religion to eat pork.

Edi explained that a joint team of government officials and
police personnel caught a vendor selling wild boar meat on Jl.
Kelingkit in the Tebet district of South Jakarta at night on July
25.

The team confiscated 740 kilograms of meat from him.

"We took the meat he was selling to our lab. The results
confirmed that it wasn't beef," he said.

Investigators learned from the vendor that the meat had come
from Sumatra and was packed in a 9-kg package worth Rp 90,000.

The authorities had earlier suspected that the meat had been
imported from other countries as beef, he said.

But inspection authorities have checked the imports, he said,
noting that imported meat from Malaysia was buffalo meat.

"The agency and the police are now trying to find the
mastermind behind the distribution network," he said.

Commission chairman Syarief Zulkarnain urged the public not to
buy cheap meat from unauthorized butchers, especially those
selling on sidestreets.

"This is a scam," he said. (lup)