Australia has one of the most efficient chicken-meat producing and processing industries in the world. Chicken meat is a hugely popular food among Australians, with consumers spending around $6.6 billion annually on chicken meat products.
Almost all chicken meat sold in Australia has been grown here and more than 1.23 million tonnes of chicken meat are produced across the nation each year.
Chicken meat is the most environmentally sustainable of all meats, due to its highly efficient use of feed, energy and water to produce a kilo of chicken meat, with therefore less greenhouse gas emissions created.
Australia’s chicken meat production is a vertically integrated industry, meaning that individual chicken processing companies generally own most elements of production – from breeding farms, hatcheries and feed mills to primary and further processing plants.
However, the chicken rearing farms are generally owned by individual farmers who rear chickens under contract to the chicken companies. This is vastly different to the structure in other agricultural industries. The chicken companies provide farmers with one-day old chicks and feed, veterinary and farm management support.
This unique structure creates an industry rich in diverse and progressive career opportunities. The Australian chicken meat industry employs more than 40,000 people in metro and regional Australia in a variety of roles and, with Australians eating an average of 49kg per person annually – representing more than 44 percent of all meat consumed in Australia, is a rewarding career choice.
For more information about a career in the Australian chicken meat industry, visit chicken.org.au