August 17, 2007

 

Growth in global chicken consumption to slow in 2007

 

 

Worldwide consumption of broiler meat is expected to inch up 1 percent from 58.95 million tonnes last year to 59.52 million tonnes this year and is expected to crash through 60 million tonnes next year to reach 60.97 million tonnes.

 

Chicken consumption has risen 12.5-percent increase over the last four years.

 

This year's estimates would seem to be a slow-down compared to previous years.

 

Global chicken consumption increased 2.3 percent in 2004 and 6 percent in 2005.

 

Even with bird flu outbreaks in many countries last year sparking consumer fears of eating chickens and sharp drops in prices, consumption managed to rise 2.6 percent from the 57.43 million tonnes in 2005 to 58.95 million tonnes in 2006.

 

Partly, this would have been due to the sharp drop in prices in chickens in countries unaffected by bird flu, such as the US where exports were affected.  Chicken imports also became much cheaper in China, a country hit by bird flu but whose chicken consumption continued rising, unfettered by bird flu fears. 

 

Worldwide chicken production is growing in tandem with consumption, with production in 2004 growing 3.1 percent over the previous year, and production in 2005 growing 5.7 percent. Production growth in 2006, however slowed to 2.0 percent.

 

Still, production at 60.36 million tonnes, is still way ahead of consumption at 58.95 million tonnes.

 

The US still remains king of chicken production, accounting for a quarter of global production, at 16.04 million tonnes, of which about 2.39 million tonnes were exported. The volume of US chicken exports is just 100,000 tonnes shy of the top global exporter Brazil, with 2.5 million tonnes exported.

 

China, with its 10.35-million tonne production, is closely followed by Brazil with 9.36 million tonnes.

 

However, Brazil, with only 6.85 million tonnes of domestic consumption, has 2.5 million tonnes of chicken to spare for export, making it the largest chicken exporter in the world.

 

With production of 7.63 million tonnes, EU chicken production also exceeds consumption. Last year the EU exported 770,000 tonnes of chicken meat, making it the third largest exporter behind Brazil and the US.

 

However, the fact that the EU also imported almost half a million tonnes of chicken makes it less of a formidable exporter.