April 8, 2014

UK poultry sector contributes significantly in boosting economy

Driven forward by a proactive supply chain and consumers that want chicken, the UK poultry sector is going places and was referred by the EU Commission as the most 'dynamic' of all the meat sectors, according to the findings of a new British Poultry Council (BPC) study.

And nowhere is this dynamism more apparent than in the UK, where the poultry story is one of steady growth, supply chain efficiency and increasing employment. The UK also supplies about 14% of all the EU's poultry meat, only piped to the top spot by France.

Writing in the introduction to the British Poultry Council's (BPC) new "state of the industry" report, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) farm minister George Eustice describes the sector as "a significant contributor to UK growth and skills".

"It contributes £3.3 billion (US$5.5 billion) to UK gross domestic product (GDP), with every £1 billion (US$1.7 billion) generating another £1.3 billion (US$2.2 billion) in the rest of the UK economy," he says. "The industry supports 35,400 direct jobs and a further 37,900 indirect jobs in the wider supply chain.

In many ways, it all stems from consumer demand. "British consumers buy more poultry than any other meat," says the report, compiled for the BPC by Oxford Economics. "By weight, poultry makes up about half of all meat purchased in the UK."

Poultry provides a cost-effective source of meat protein, while it accounts for almost 50% of sales by volume, in spending terms it is just 42%. This reflects the fact that, since 2001, poultry prices have increased far more slowly than prices for beef, pork, lamb and fish.

The rate of inflation for poultry equates to 2.2% per year since the beginning of the past decade, compared with overall food price inflation of 3.4%.

Supermarket purchases dominate sales of poultry, with 80% of spending going through their tills in 2009-10.