This follows hard on the heels of an earlier order – again worth nearly one million pounds — to another Asian country, Cambodia, announced by the Yorkshire-based company in the New Year.

(L-R) Lorry King, nucleus manager, Mr Stephen Curtis, ACMC chairman, Madam Goa, president of ShuanGe and Dr Xia, pig complex manager survey the new ACMC stock from England on the ShiJiaZuang Shuang Ge Food Co's nucleus unit.

Nucleus manager Lorry King completed a month's training in Yorkshire, before returning to the nucleus farm in Jinzhou county.

The pigs, which were flown, under veterinary supervision, from the UK to Shijiazhuang via Amsterdam, are being used to establish a brand new nucleus unit on a green-field site by processing and retailing company the ShiJiaZuang ShuangGe Food Co Ltd from Shijiazhuang City in HeBei Province.

In addition to producing pigs for its own use under a 20-year franchise agreement, the company will be supplying improved breeding stock to other pig farmers within the province. This will enable them to produce over a million superior-quality pigs for slaughter annually, helping to feed HeBei’s 64 million people. Production is starting late spring/early summer.

The agreement, negotiated personally by ACMC chairman Stephen Curtis, followed visits to China and Chinese delegations to the company’s Beeford headquarters.

“A major attraction for the Chinese was the highly-prolific Meidam damline,“ he commented.

This was developed uniquely by ACMC from the Meishan breed, which was imported, paradoxically, from China in the 1980s, to boost output from European lines. The Meidam, Britain’s newest registered purebred, combines with the company’s Vantage Ultra sireline boar to produce stock which is capable of fast, lean growth and efficient feed conversion rate, without sacrificing this prolificacy.

Through electronic links and technical visits, ACMC will be providing a range of support services for the new nucleus herd’s genetic and general administration. The company has developed its own windows-based herd management program. Genetic ‘up-dates’ will be supplied via boar semen from top sires at the company’s genetic nucleus farm in the UK.