Characterizing the Tanzanian quality beef supply chain; a case of Arusha and Dar-es-Salaam cities

摘要

Niche markets that require quality products and pay premium prices are increasingly dominating the market share of East African livestock products. To serve the niche markets sustainably; a well-coordinated, communicated and integrated chain is a pre requisite. This ensures understanding of competitive challenges, identifying relationship among chain actors, ensuring more efficient product flows along the chain and improving access to markets. This paper characterized the Tanzanian quality beef supply chain by using functional approach. Data were collected by using questionnaires administered to two cattle fattening companies, six beef processors, 11 supermarkets, 34 tourist hotels and one beef importer. Quality beef accounted for 5% of beef traded in the study areas. This beef targeted high income consumers who were served through tourist hotels and supermarkets. The quality beef were traded through three main retailing outlets: conventional butchers (21.5%), supermarkets and modern butchers (40.4%) and tourist hotels with restaurants (38.1%). The beef traded through supermarkets & tourist hotels encompasses prime cuts of half carcasses processed and tenderized in the processing factories; while non-prime cuts from the processing factories were traded through conventional butchers. Moreover, it was found that 34% of QB traded in the study areas was imported mainly from Kenya; a situation that calls for the attention of beef industry stakeholders in Tanzania.