September 13, 2007
 

Bounty Fresh launches Smart hatchery in the Philippines

press release 

Bounty Fresh Foods (formerly Tyson Agro) has elected to install its new broiler hatchery project in Cagayan d'Oro, Mindanao.

It will have single-stage, closed-door Smart Incubators from Pas Reform, the Dutch incubation equipment supplier.

Prior, Bounty Fresh monitored the development of single-stage incubation technologies for several years. The new hatchery, the first of its kind in the Philippines, is the result of that effort, and will be operational from October this year. It will produce 200,000 day-old chicks per week in its first phase. Bounty Fresh has installed SmartSet setters, SmartHatch hatchers and Pas Reform's hatchery ventilation system.

''We have been looking at the introduction of single stage incubation in our broiler operation for some time now,'' said Tennyson Chen, President of Bounty Fresh. ''When we made our last investment in Tarlac some seven years ago now, we were at that time still not convinced about the benefits of single-stage incubation -- and consequently chose multi-stage equipment for that project.''

Now, with improvements and developments both in genetics and in single-stage methodology, Bounty Fresh is excited about introducing single-stage incubation practice in Mindanao for the first time.

Kenneth Chen, Tennyson's brother and business partner, added: ''We have seen the impact that Pas Reform has had on single-stage with the introduction of its Smart incubation system over the last couple of years.''

The time is now right to capitalise on the benefits of single-stage incubation in terms of broiler uniformity and feed conversion ratios. ''Working alongside Pas Reform's hatchery management specialists, we are confident that we will achieve the technical results to deliver superior chick quality, and with that, superior broiler performance.''

The Mindanao project represents a new entry into a new market for Pas Reform.  ''Having been close to the Philippine poultry sector for the last 13 years, I have seen Bounty Fresh rise up, from a very small parent stock and commercial layer operation to become the second largest broiler integration with production of approximaltely 2.5 million day-old broilers per week throughout the Philippines," said Bouke Hamminga, Business Development Manager, Pas Reform,.

''This is a rare and exciting opportunity - and based on the marked improvements in broiler performance that we have seen in other [Smart] installations around the world, we are confident that the results will justify this major investment in single stage incubation equipment for Bounty Fresh.''