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Australian Beef Intestines Are Off the Menu With Indonesian Ban

From Bloomberg

March 3 2015

Shoppers at butcher Aji Seno’s stall in east Jakarta care more about the price of his beef lungs, livers and intestines than where the offal comes from. Not so the country’s new president.

Joko Widodo, who pledged to make Indonesia less reliant on food imports in last year’s presidential campaign, has banned imports of most secondary cuts of meat and will allow only state-owned enterprises to bring in the products in times of shortages. Businesses predict a supply crunch, higher prices and the risk of monopolies and a black market.

“This is Indonesia man, everyone loves offal,” said Seno, whose cuts from Australian cattle sell for 25 percent less than those from Indonesian ones. “If there’s no imported offal, then the price of local offal will rise. I won’t know how to sell it.”

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