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PIC has completed delivery of 2,300 grandparent stock from Canada to franchise partner, PIC Korea. The elite breeding pigs were flown in 3 shipments to supplement local supply in populating large-scale multiplier farms owned by Korea’s largest independent producer, Sansugol. PIC Korea is taking a leading role in responding to the devastating impact of FMD on the country’s swine industry and the partnership with Sansugol will result in a doubling of parent gilt production capacity within 12 months.
Due to the size of the shipments, it was necessary to commission the quarantine facility in Pusan normally used for equine imports. This also required the airline to divert from its scheduled route but the extra work and investment paid off. Sangki Choi, President of Sansugol (pictured), commented “In a situation like this, it’s an enormous competitive advantage to have the support of PIC’s global supply chain. Not only can we access the best genetics available, but PIC provides invaluable back-up when we need big volumes of high health animals. We have worked with PIC Korea for some years and are delighted to have now teamed up with them on the multiplication projects. Our only concern was how to populate the farms within the desired timeframe as the local supply base was already under pressure from other ongoing stockings. We were able to add the imported gilts to domestically produced GPs to stock the farms on schedule.”
The PIC and PIC Korea teams are now busy preparing for another big airlift, this time of great-grandparents to stock a new Nucleus facility currently under construction. This will be the second such herd operated by PIC Korea and it will underpin the dramatic expansion of multiplication capacity that has taken place in 2011.
November 2011- PIC
