November 15, 2010
India shows great potential to increase poultry export
Once the country overcomes the constraint of inadequate processing plants, it has tremendous potential to increase its export of poultry meat.
"Potential to export poultry meat from India is tremendous. All the major poultry importing countries are around India. Being in the middle of market and competitive cost of broiler production are in favour of India," said Poultry Federation of India (PFI) spokesman Ricky Thaper.
However, not enough poultry processing plants are in place to capture a big share of the export potential, he lamented.
India export of poultry products came down to INR372 crore (US$83 million) in 2009-10 from INR422 crore (US$95 million) in 2008-9, Apeda (Agricultural and Processed Foodproducts Export Development Authority) quoting DGCIS annual export said.
Major destinations of export of poultry products are Afghanistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Pakistan, Maldives, Liberia and Bahrain.
Entrepreneurs should seize the opportunity to earn good profits by exporting broiler meat to Russia, Middle East countries and even Japan and other developed countries, Thaper said.
When broiler meat is processed into different cuts, the premium cuts having low cholesterol levels such as breast meat are in great demand in developed economies, he said, adding that India was in position to compete the developed countries as they had limited supplies of the breast meat and sold it at a very high premium.
In India, less than 10% of the broilers are dressed and processed hygienically for sale in food malls and other high-end markets. Ninety percent consumers still go for live poultry, he said.
The question of disposal of surplus body parts, which do not get premium price in export market, does not arise in India, as Indian consumers prefer meat from chicken legs, Thaper said.
The entrepreneurs have scope to export premium cuts such as breast meat to developed countries at a price, which is very competitive but still highly profitable and sell the remaining broiler body parts in India, again at a competitive price and realise good value for dressed broilers.
