SINGAPORE: Two months after pig blood curd returned to Singapore's food scene, demand continues to outstrip supply, with businesses saying they are still struggling to secure enough stock even as the initial rush has eased."Every day I've got at least 20 people asking, and I think half of them are new customers. They purposely come from far away to look for pig blood," said one hawker at Chinatown Complex Food Centre, where at least three stalls have added pig's blood to the menu. The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) announced on Apr 1 that it had approved the import of heat-treated pig blood products from Bangkhla Pig Slaughterhouse in Thailand, ending a 27-year ban. While other companies have expressed interest, none have submitted formal applications for approval, the agency said.
Food manufacturer CP Foods, the exclusive importer of the product into Singapore, brought in the first shipment on May 28 for distribution to retail partners. Since then, demand has remained consistently high and "continues to outpace available supply", a spokesperson said. The company has scaled up weekly imports from 6,000 packets in its first shipment to as much as 20,000 packets now, but is not looking to source from other slaughterhouses despite the demand.It pointed to production capacity and safety and hygiene standards as constraints to scaling up supply. "As raw pig blood can only be collected during the slaughtering process, overall production volume is directly tied to the daily throughput of the slaughterhouse," the spokesperson said, adding that every batch must pass mandatory testing before export. Supply is also shared between the Thai and Singapore markets.
