Zhongpin Inc., a leading meat and food processing company in the People's Republic of China has announced it started production in its new prepared pork products plant in Changge, in Henan province, on 26 December 2009. The new Changge plant will have an annual capacity of 36,000 metric tons for prepared pork products. With this addition, Zhongpin will have 90,000 metric tons of annual capacity in its three Changge plants for prepared pork products.

Xianfu Zhu, Chairman and CEO of Zhongpin, said: "Our new plant opened right on schedule and has started its initial production of convenient pork products that are ready-to-eat or easy-to-cook, including sausages, meatballs, and Chinese-style meats. These products are especially flavourful, wholesome and designed for everyone's daily busy schedules. The new plant uses all our modern systems to guarantee the highest quality and safety of our products."

The new Changge plant will supply to most of Zhongpin's current retail locations, restaurant chains, hotels, and other institutional customers in several regional markets in China.

Zhongpin says it is modernising meat production by selecting, integrating and applying the most modern industrial process engineering, quality assurance, biological validation, cold-chain logistics, and information technology systems. As a result, Zhongpin's production system maintains the highest level of food quality and food safety in every step of its process – from farm to fork.