Buying and Selling Ox Gallstones France

Gallstones are a common occurrence in humans. Essentially, they are lumps of bile that have backed up in the gallbladder and will not move to your small intestine as it is designed to do.

They can also form in a range of shapes and sizes, from round to egg-shaped, and as tubes from the bile ducts. Depending on their dryness, colour, texture and size they will attract varying prices.

Cattle

Gallstones, or calculus bovis, are a naturally occurring bilirubin-laden substance found in the gallbladders of some beef cattle. Typically, they can develop as early as a few weeks of age and can range in size from a pebble to a cricket ball. They are a common cause of health problems such as indigestion, gas and abdominal pain, though their use for medicinal purposes dates back at least as far as ancient China and Persia.

But despite their purported medical benefits, most doctors and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe an excess of bilirubin is bad news. It is believed to have an effect on the brain and lungs, making it a potential danger to coma patients.

In fact, some beef processing plants have resorted to harvesting gallstones for profit–a head-to-tail business model that turns almost every part of an animal into a valuable byproduct. Gallstones are also sold to Asian markets as a precious herbal Chinese medicine.

It’s been a while since the gallstone white market hit the headlines, but it’s one that has been around for at least a decade. Sunshine Trading, a family-run operation in Sydney that claims to be Australia’s “market leader in the industry”, has been raking in more than $200kg of gallstones at grey market rates from Australian abattoirs since 2003.

The company buys the stones from gutties at kill floor level, and sells them to Asian pharmacies for as high as $2,000 a 57-gram stone. The gallstones have to be smooth, rust-coloured and small enough to hold in the palm of the hand.

A lot of people on social media have seized upon Monday’s report that gallstones are worth as much as $20,000 a kilogram, suggesting that the processors must be stealing them from beef producers for their own financial gain. But that view fails to take into account the fact that they are an extremely rare commodity, with a total production of just 200kg by the Australian beef industry each year.

Gerard Murtagh, director of international sales at Sunshine Trading, tells VICE that the prices for gallstones are based on a ’peak cycle’: when the price of bilirubin-based medicines spikes and a glut of ox gallstones hits the market. That’s why a lot of meat workers are still risking their jobs to get their hands on these rare rocks.

Abattoirs

In recent years, the abattoirs have cottoned on to the rising market value of ox gallstones France. The tiny masses of bilirubin and calcium are a valuable byproduct of slaughter cattle’s evisceration process, and can fetch up to HK$19,000 per kilogram for use in Chinese herbal medicine.

They’re also a lucrative byproduct for meat processing plants, who rake in a small amount of money each week on the back of the cattle they kill. The money is a welcome source of cash for head-to-tail businesses, which turn almost every part of an animal into a profit.

But if you’re not a meatworker, it can be difficult to understand how such a small thing can end up in your pocket. Especially when you consider that a gallstone is 75 percent water when it’s first harvested, and loses much of its weight once it starts to dry out.

That’s why it’s not surprising that gutties are tempted to pick them up and take home a little extra cash, if they can get their hands on them. It’s a gamble, but one that can reap them handsome profits.

The risk-takers can sell the stones on the grey market for as much as HK$19,000 a tael, or US$65 for three grams of small pellets. Then they can ship them overseas to the Chinese medicine market, where there’s a strong demand for this precious byproduct.

Gerard explains that the price is likely to stay high for some time to come, as there’s “no doubt” Chinese government promotion of bilirubin-based medicines boosts demand. Despite a looming coronavirus pandemic, there’s no sign that the market will slow down in the near future.

Unlike other byproducts like horns, hooves and blood, there’s no way to track who owns them once they’ve been removed from an animal’s carcase. That means any gutties who grab a few can easily find themselves in a spot of bother when the authorities get involved.

While it’s not uncommon for gutties to get caught pilfering these byproducts, it’s always best to be vigilant when buying and selling gallstones on the grey market. It’s worth checking a seller’s reputation before committing yourself to any transaction.

Crime

Gallstones have been a hot commodity in the beef industry for years, but it’s not always been the easiest way to score some extra cash. Those who have been on the abattoir floor for longer will be familiar with the shady side of gallstone sourcing, where sticky-fingered meat workers have had to rely on more covert methods.

One of the most common and effective methods is to purchase them on the black market, but this can be a risky business. Gallstones can be worth hundreds of dollars a kilo, so the temptation to snag them for cheap is a serious one.

In recent years, Australian abattoirs have been putting a few patent-designed gallstone and bile retrieval units in place, or GBRRUs, to secure them away from sticky fingers. This may not be the most efficient method of collecting these valuable items, but it’s a step in the right direction, especially considering that gallstones are arguably one of the most rare and valuable commodities in the world.

On Monday, police in southern Queensland smashed the lid on what is said to be the state’s first gallstone burglary. A search of the property yielded a half kilo cache of what looked like a few small, lustrous gemstones. Despite their impressive size, however, the small-to-medium-sized gallstones were not all that valuable.

Sunshine Trading

Sunshine trading, or’sunlight trade’ is an investor-led strategy that pre-announces large transactions in order to reduce ‘dark pool’ trading pitfalls. This type of trading is done in private exchanges that are not publicly accessible to the general public.

When a stock is traded in the sunshine, it is more transparent than when it is traded in a dark pool, and investors are able to realise lower transaction costs. A sunshine trade also helps to eliminate the confusion and speculation that can arise when a large investment is announced before it happens.

A recent report by VICE suggested that cow gallstones are worth up to $20,000 a kilogram, and meat workers were being charged with stealing them from abattoirs. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

For starters, they are an extremely rare commodity. They’re a fraction of a percent of the cattle industry’s total production. And they’re even harder to come by than oyster pearls, which only make up a tiny fraction of the oyster population.

That means that any abattoir that collects gallstones must be doing so for a reason: to rake in huge profits. Gerard Murtagh, director of international sales for the family-owned business Sunshine Trading, told VICE that his company rakes in an average of 200 kilograms every year at the ‘gray market’ rate–or $11.5 million USD at current prices.

Moreover, a lot of these ‘gray market’ transactions take place through darknet marketplaces and private Facebook groups. In fact, these groups are a gathering-point for people around the world looking to trade in gallstones.

These ‘darknet’ marketplaces are typically run by individuals who are not directly employed by slaughterhouses, but rather are a kind of a middleman between buyers and sellers. It’s a business model that allows them to buy and sell stones from a wide range of abattoirs.

The cost of a stone depends on its dryness, colour, texture and size. Whole, smooth, lustrous golden specimens are worth the most. But dark and pitted rocks, or those with calcium inclusions (white), are far less valuable.

This is why gallstones are so important to a meat plant’s bottom line: as a means of boosting productivity. Similarly, gallstones are also a profitable by-product of collecting bile from the main ducts of the liver, which is used for animal feed. Having an effective retrieval program is essential to making the most out of this otherwise wasted material.

Buying and Selling Ox Gallstones France