Argentina-Chinese take 20,000 cattle per week.

ARGENTINA.

20,000 CATTLE PER WEEK.

Most countries today are reliant of the major supermarkets, who control the lions share of the retail trade.Buenos Aires has a population of 11 million people, boasting 5,500 independent Chinese family owned supermarkets.

Each supermarket, cuts an average of 8 sides of beef per week, giving an average of 20 to 25,000 head of cattle per week, going into this valuable market, which is the backbone of the domestic beef industry.

The retail butcher, is still a very important part of Argentine life, to cater for this the Chinese supermarkets have a corner of the store, dedicated to fresh meat, complete with bandsaw and mincer and cut the meat to order. The shoppers like to select their cuts and have them cut in front of them, in the same manner as the butchers shops of years gone by.

When the Chinese and Koreans, emigrated to Argentina in large numbers after the war, there was a tax loophole that no one can quite explain in lay-mans terms.

Suffice to say, they are able to run their stores outside of the VAT system. This gives them a 21% advantage on most products and a 10% advantage on the sale of meat.

The majority of the supermarkets are second generation family owned business’s, they are still opening at the rate of 5-6 stores per week.