February 7, 2023

 

UK poultry sector at "crisis point", says managing director of poultry producer

 

 

 

Poultry farming in the United Kingdom is at "crisis point" and at risk of "going the same way as the egg sector" unless producers see a rapid increase in returns, a leading grower warned.

 

Only the "top quartile" of the sector's chicken farmers were currently making enough cash to continue producing in the long term under current financial conditions, said Jo Hilditch, managing director of Herefordshire-based Whittern Farms.

 

Many producers were "not restocking" birds in the face chronically low returns and soaring costs, Hilditch said. She told The Grocer she had been forced to "put money back into the business from my private reserves".

 

Her business produces about six million birds a year from three different farms and supplies conventional indoor-reared broilers to a number of customers, including Tesco, via processor Avara Foods.

 

Amid soaring input inflation and challenges such as bird flu, Hilditch said her company's costs and those of many more growers across the sector were "not paid for by our income". This had been made worse by the UK government overlooking the poultry sector in its Energy and Trade Intensive Industries funding scheme last month.

 

Hilditch – who is calling on supermarkets to push up prices even further and pass on greater returns down the supply chain – said her production costs had risen by about 30% over the past year, with more to come as the government's current energy support package came to an end.

 

She was certain "we will make a loss this year", a position many more producers found themselves in. Many – particularly those with no finance to pay off – may decide they "would rather not have birds in their sheds costing them money", she said.

 

"The chicken growing sector is very progressive and we have never been supported by any subsidies," Hilditch noted. "We don't expect to either, but we need a fair price; otherwise, the writing will be on the wall and there won't be any chicken if [the supermarkets] are not careful."

 

Her comments came a week after major processor 2 Sisters Food Group – which has echoed her calls for greater returns from supermarkets over the past year and half – announced it was closing its factory in Llangefni on Anglesey, citing rising costs. More than 700 jobs are at risk.

 

- The Grocer