Sibu Tales : Butcher's Block

The pork business is one of the longest standing businesses in Sibu.

Pig rearers in Sibu have a long history. There are two kinds of pig rearers :one which rear more than 100 pigs in the farm, or those who rear two or three broods per year as a family owned business.

Most family farms depend on left over food and in the past did not even buy scientific feed for their animals. Yams and water lettuce cooked with sago flour and rice husks were good feed. Today this kind of hot food for the pigs is not common.

Pig farms are well monitored by the Agriculture Department to safe guard the health of the pigs and general hygiene of the state.

Photo from Rajang Basin by Wong Meng Lei

Pork is sold in standard buildings and only licensees can sell pork. They are still casually dressed like the butchers of olden days. Some butchers are third generation butchers. Imagine that!!

There is no modernisation of butcher shops in Sarawak. While supermarkets may sell imported and local meat, pork as a non halal meat is still not sold in supermarkets which tend to do halal food.



In the future we would never know what would happen to this familiar and easy kind of lifestyle.

Australian Middle Eastern Butcher

Perhaps we may have to rethink our style of life and even change our culinary styles!! It would be quite a revolution in culinary arts if pork is taken out of our Foochow life style. Think of the future when pork cannot be sold in the market openly, or restaurants must be purely Halal in order to get a license for business.