‘Unpleasant signal’ for Don producer amid Chinese poultry competition

Damate Group, which produces turkey and duck meat in the Rostov region, has encountered problems exporting its products to China. The friendly country has been hindering Russian producers from accessing its market since 2025. At the same time, China has sharply increased its own poultry meat supplies to Russia. This was reported by Damate representative Yevgeny Ivanov at the Rostov region Chamber of Commerce and Industry platform.

According to him, in 2025, China increased poultry product supplies to Russia by 40%, and duck supplies tripled.

‘That«s in volume. In value terms, I won»t even cite a figure, because we export, so to speak, scraps and bones there, while back come breast fillets, drumsticks, whole carcasses, and other valuable parts,’ says Ivanov.

In China, he continues, the market is now oversaturated with its own meat products. Because of this, export shipments of poultry meat from Russia are subjected to full customs inspections ‘on fabricated pretexts.’

‘It gets ridiculous. Customs counts how much residual feathering is on our products with skin. Whether it meets their standards,’ Ivanov said.

According to him, to date, China has already banned supplies from 12 Russian poultry farms due to alleged non-compliance of their products with epizootic or quality standards. Because of this, Russia«s Rosselkhoznadzor (the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance) has strengthened veterinary control and subjects every container of poultry meat shipped for export to any country, not just China, to additional inspections.

Damate Group is a major Russian agricultural holding implementing projects for breeding and processing turkey, duck, and lamb, as well as milk production and processing. It is owned by Naum Babayev. It sells products under the brands Indilayt, Ozyorka, BazarCo, Karachayevskaya Chernya, Salima, and Tolko!

In the Rostov region, the group includes LLC Indushkin Dvor (turkey breeding) and LLC Novye Utinye Fermy (duck breeding). The company Indushkin Dvor was registered in May 2020 to restart turkey production in the Rostov region using the facilities of the bankrupt Eurodon-Yug owned by Vadim Vaneyev.

‘We have no issues with Rosselkhoznadzor, we understand and are cooperative, we have nothing to hide. But the problem is not veterinary, it«s political. Due to this situation, we are forced to redirect our flows to Africa, where the sales structure is different and prices are lower. But in Africa, we will have to compete with the same China, which owns most local ports. And here, competition risks being inherently not in our favor,’ says Ivanov.

But now China is ‘pressuring’ Russian producers even in Russia itself. As Ivanov says, even considering logistics costs, prices for Chinese duck are at the level of the cost price of domestic products.

‘This pressures the domestic market, forcing us to operate at a loss. The import of duck products is such an unpleasant signal for us. Certainly, in terms of quality, everyone unanimously says that Chinese products don«t even come close to ours. But mainly, buyers of Chinese products are the B2B segment. These are not end consumers, and in processing, the difference in product quality is hard to detect,’ Ivanov said.

First Deputy Governor of the Rostov region Aleksey Gospodarev promised to try to address the problem. According to him, the authorities know ‘where and how to write’ in such cases, and it won«t be superfluous. It is possible that the situation will become a subject for discussion during the visit to China by a delegation of the Rostov region government led by Governor Yury Slyusar. It is planned for 2026.