New Zealand has a unique status as being free of the three major exotic avian diseases. Avian influenza (bird flu), Newcastle’s Disease and Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD) routinely cause massive losses in native and farmed bird flocks elsewhere in the world.
It is a status PIANZ and its members continue to seek to protect and it is assisted by the fact that raw poultry products cannot be imported into New Zealand.
As well as protecting our native bird flocks and our farming stocks from disease, this ban also allows us to assure consumers that New Zealand’s fresh poultry products are free from growth hormones – a status we have maintained for more than 30 years – and all poultry sold by our members meets the stringent animal welfare and food safety standards that New Zealand consumers have rightly come to expect.
See FAQs and Industry Myths sections of this site for more information about this topic
