February 28, 2025

 

Sales of China's yellow-feather broilers find opportunity in pre-cooked food

 

The industrial chain of China's native yellow-feathered broilers has long depended on the live poultry trading market due to traditional consumption habits.

 

In China, 80% of yellow-feathered chicken sales occur through live poultry trading, with the remaining 20% processed in slaughterhouses. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the country to gradually ban live poultry trading, significantly impacting yellow-feathered chicken producers. While some large producers have expanded their cold chains to promote chilled and fresh native chicken, sales have declined and the market share of yellow-feathered broilers continues to decrease in recent years.

 

Data indicates that in 2023, the total production of white-feathered broilers was 7.195 billion birds, an 18.14% increase from 2022, whereas yellow-feathered broilers totaled 3.595 billion birds, a 3.52% decrease from 2022. The production of yellow-feathered broilers has dropped by nearly one billion from birds its peak of 4.559 billion in 2019.

 

China boasts at least 170 varieties of native yellow-feathered broilers, each favoured locally for its unique flavor and unique regional cooking style. However, this diversity has limited the broader market development of native broilers. Despite advancements in cold and frozen chains expanding the sales reach of various yellow-feathered broilers, the industry remains dominated by small-scale farms. Consumers often believe that pre-slaughter native broilers lose most or all of their flavor when chilled or frozen.

 

To address these challenges, leading producers are enhancing cold chain facilities and exploring the pre-cooked food market.

 

Wen's, China's largest native broiler producer, has been delving into pre-cooked foods in recent years. In 2017, Wen's planned to transform into a food company with its "532" strategic goal: 50% of poultry sold as live chickens, 30% sold as fresh, post-slaughter types, and 20% as processed and sold as pre-cooked food. By 2023, Wen's pre-cooked dishes sales reached 20,500 tonnes (including pork).

 

In 2022, Wen's established Wen's Jiawei Food Co., Ltd. (which focuses on deep processing and the sales of high-quality native broilers) and Wen's Shangchu (which is dedicated to R&D for chicken and pigeon pre-cooked food). Under this new strategic direction, Wen's Jiawei aims to promote pre-cooked food with unique local flavors and has created the popular "Kungfu Salt-baked chicken".

 

In March 2024, at the Second China International (Foshan) Pre-cooked Food Industry Conference in Shunde, Foshan — dubbed the "first meeting of pre-cooked dishes" — the "2024 Hurun Top-100 China Pre-cooked Food Enterprises" list was released, with Wen's Jiawei's Salt-baked chicken leading its category.

 

Currently, this product is available in over 3,000 outlets, as well as restaurants.

 

Beyond Wen's Food, two other listed companies in the native broiler sector are Xiangjia Co., Ltd. and Lihua Co., Ltd.

 

In recent years, Xiangjia has actively expanded its pre-cooked food business. The company plans to invest ¥500 million (US$68.9 million) to build the Meishi Xindong Super Smart Factory, with an annual capacity of 70,000 tonnes of deep-processed food, pre-cooked food, and meat snacks. To date, the company has developed over 20 products and was listed in Hurun Top-100 in 2023.

 

Lihua has also been developing and promoting semi-finished and pre-cooked native chicken food while expanding its breeding and slaughtering capacities.

 

Meanwhile, driven by local enterprises, some regional specialty native broiler varieties are overcoming geographical limitations through pre-cooked food, reaching dining tables in cities.

 

One example is the Qingyuan chicken, a renowned yellow-feathered broiler known as Qingyuan hemp chicken, which is recognised as one of the 27 high-quality varieties in the Chinese Poultry Varieties Record. It is celebrated for its smooth skin, tender and bright red meat, soft bones, and unique flavor. Created in 1964, Qingping chicken is a famous Guangzhou dish featuring Qingyuan chicken and is recognised as the premier chicken dish in the city.

 

Guangdong Aijiankang Biotechnology Co., Ltd., a native broiler producer wich breeds purebred Qingyuan chickens, is a leading agricultural and animal husbandry enterprise with a comprehensive industrial chain encompassing breeding, hatching, broiler rearing, feed production, slaughtering, processing, cold chain logistics, retail, and brand operations.

 

Leveraging modern production lines and the Guangzhou-Qingyuan transportation infrastructure, the company produces and sells cooked products and pre-cooked Qingyuan chicken food.

 

Over the next three years, Aijiankang plans to open hundreds of brick-and-mortar chain stores specialising in Qingyuan Chicken across Guangzhou and other areas within the Greater Bay Area.

About EFL AG-DATA

 

EFL AG-DATA is a startup incubated by Singapore's Nanyang Technological University's Innovation and Enterprise Company (NTUitive) Incubator Program. It is developing an agricultural hub that will revolutionise the feed-to-meat supply chain in China and Southeast Asia countries through data-driven solutions. EFL's mission is to empower farms through innovative data-based services that solve complex problems and enhance productivity.

 

- EFL AG-DATA