February 4, 2004

Taiwan Uni-President Feed Sales May Fall 20% On Bird Flu

Uni-President Enterprises Corp., Taiwan's largest food company, may post a 20% fall in sales of animal feed in the island if bird flu damps chicken consumption, said a senior company official Tuesday.

However, the impact on the company's earnings will be limited, partly because the profit margin of animal feed is only about 1%, said L.Y. Lin, the company's president.

The company sells between NT$2 billion (US$1=NT$33.273) and NT$3 billion worth of animal feed in Taiwan a year, he said.

That was only a small portion of the company's revenue of NT$37.97 billion in 2003.

"So far we haven't seen any impact on the sales in Taiwan," Lin said.

None of the Taiwanese chicken farms hit by bird flu is a Uni-President customer, but feed sales may fall if consumers shy away from chicken, Lin said.

Taiwan so far hasn't reported any cases of the H5N1 bird flu strain that has killed at least 12 people and ravaged the poultry industry in Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea and other Asian nations. But chickens infected with the milder H5N2 strain, which hasn't jumped to humans, have been found on the island.