how dare them want to eat right?

What part about importing dead sheep instead of live sheep is the problem?

ah, the good old "I can't see why they doing it so they must be wrong" line of thinking.

dunno, on top of my head:

how much does shipping frozen good costs over short-medium distances?

how much does slaughtering cost in either countries?

how do you track if food was processed according to that market expectancy and codes?

why wendy is so big on touting his beef was never frozen?

and there's not even a general rule, shipping meat can be cost effective compared to animals depending on country of origin and destination, yet alone distances, i.e. https://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/fulltext/420339 and the result vary according to whether you're optimizing for cost or environment protection (and we know what companies tend to go for, right?)

Maybe we shouldn't optimize just for cost effectiveness if sentient beings are involved?

Yeah. The tl;dr here is really that some countries just don't care about animal welfare that much, or at all.

why is everyone so hellbent of depriving people from the taste of fresh meat? setting aside the specific requirement for processed food in these countries, why would you only want them to be served frozen products, if they can afford to foot the shipping costs? animal welfare is tangential and mostly impact on costs. I'm talking about availability, which people seem very keen of just removing because of perceived (and unsubstantiated) issues with livestock shipment.