By Martin Hellicar
FORGET the S-300s – another crisis is threatening to undermine the very fabric of Cypriot society by hiking the price of the island’s favourite delicacy, sheftalia.
Such is the demand for the barbecued pork morsel that the near 500,000 pigs slaughtered every year here do not provide enough of the pana pig gut used to wrap the oblong-shaped spicy bonne bouche. Each pig produces enough pana for only five or six sheftalia, so huge quantities of the pig gut are imported.
Last year, food importers beat off rival bids from the French cosmetics industry to import a massive 300,000 tonnes of Danish pig gut at a premium price.
But the Customs and Excise department has now thrown a spanner in the works by raising the duty on the imported gut by 45 per cent.
The import tax hike, forced by a reclassification of pana as offal rather than meat, means the price of sheftalia is set to rocket.
Kebab shop owners – for whom sheftalia are an indispensable accompaniment to souvlakia pork kebabs – are up in arms.
“All kebabs served with sheftalia will soon be out of the ordinary person’s price range,” one Nicosia kebab shop owner said yesterday.
And now importers fear the increased duty could mean they are no longer in a position to compete with the French cosmetics industry to buy up the Danish production – leaving our sheftalia unwrapped.
The food importers’ branch of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Keve) is doing all it can to get the Customs and Excise department to reverse the decision, their representative Takis Photiades said yesterday.
“Unfortunately, the new duty has already been imposed: some importers have paid it, while others are keeping the product in customs awaiting the authority’s response to the repeated strong protests of the importers,” he said.
The director of the Customs and Excise Department, Andy Trifonitis, seemed to be bowing to the pressure yesterday. He promised the duty hike would be reconsidered.
“We decided to seek the opinion of the EU. Yesterday I received the answer that we had correctly classified the product,” he said.
“I also met one of the food importers yesterday who claimed the way we had described the product to the EU was wrong. I undertook to look at the matter again.”
Despite the uncertainty, at least one sheftalia devotee was determined not to give up his favourite tit-bit – whatever happens.
“It’s part of our national heritage, and I for one will not eat anything else – regardless of the price,” he said.
