March 31, 2020

 

UK poultry sector struggle from demand surge

 

The UK's poultry industry is struggling to handle a spike in chicken demand from British consumers, while workers stay at home over COVID-19 fears.

 

Chicken purchasing was up by more than a fifth from a year earlier by both volume and value in the week to March 14, bringing the total to GBP33.7 million, according to data firm Nielsen, while egg purchasing rose by a similar amount to GBP15.2 million.

 

Many companies in the British food supply chain have been struggling to cope with the sudden spike in grocery purchases in recent weeks as people rushed to stockpile in anticipation of the government's COVID-19 lockdown. The closure of cafes and restaurants has also prompted a shift as many search for cheap sources of protein to cook.

 

Executives from the poultry industry said the purchasing figures would have been higher had the industry been able to fulfil all the demand, which rose as consumers stuck at home sought out cheaper sources of protein.

 

But short-term supply is limited by the life cycle and laying capacity of chickens, while poultry meat producers say workers have been staying home because of the virus-despite their status as "key workers".

 

Shraddha Kaul, director of external affairs at the British Poultry Council (BPC), said some businesses were missing as much as a third of staff.

 

Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the BPC, added, "This is causing chaos for food businesses that are doing everything they can to offset the risk of a supply chain disruption." He called on the government to emphasise the critical role of food workers "in its future speeches and text messages".

 

However some workers say conditions in poultry processing factories do not allow for the "social distancing" urged by public health officials to help prevent the virus spread.

 

A group of workers at a site in Portadown, in Northern Ireland, run by Moy Park, one of the UK's largest chicken producers, staged a walkout on Wednesday, saying their employer had failed to ensure workers could operate 2 metres apart as recommended by the government, according to the union Unite. Official guidance for food processing businesses says they should observe social distancing guidelines "as far as is reasonably possible".

 

Moy Park said it had put "new, robust measures in place" to keep workers safe, including "staggering breaks, respacing workstations and communal areas, as well as installing screens on appropriate production lines".

 

Ronald Kers, chief executive of 2 Sisters Food Group, the UK's largest chicken producer with output of 6.5 million birds a week, said the company had "seen absenteeism going up".

 

Both 2 Sisters and Moy Park have launched large-scale hiring campaigns, partly to help compensate for staff absences.

 

Clive Black, analyst at Shore Capital, said, "Poultry is the cheapest protein and it's also a very flexible, adaptable protein. It's a much lower cost per kilo and per calorie than beef and lamb; [People are in] almost a wartime mentality."

 

Egg production, a separate industry from poultry meat, is dominated in the UK by Noble Foods, which is also carrying out a recruitment drive.

 

The British Egg Information Service said, "The industry is dealing with a period of unprecedented demand. We are doing our utmost to get stock to shops as quickly as possible."