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Vol 5. No. 2 February 2022 National Poultry Newspaper PO Box 162 Wynnum 4178 Phone (07) 3286 1833 Email ben@collins.media
The chicken meat industry supply chain is vulnerable to disruption with the domi- nance of two chicken processing plants in Australia. Photo: Adobe Stock
Supply chain issues for chicken meat industry
A MORE diverse poultry industry could help ease supply chain issues and reduce cost pressures on chicken growers, farmers believe.
ply chain crisis is not related to the number of processors or industry structure, and is unprecedented.
distribution, chicken meat production in Australia was dominated by a small num- ber of vertically integrated businesses where the own- ership up the supply chain is controlled by a single operator.
According to growers and industry representatives, a few major processors domi- nating the chicken process- ing industry have contrib- uted to the supermarket shortages across Australia.
For the large processing companies that own the birds, such as Inghams and Baiada, chicken farmers are contracted to provide the equipment, sheds, land, util- ities and labour necessary to grow the chickens.
And that in 2020, Ing- hams Enterprises and Baia- da Poultry supplied 70 per- cent of Australia’s chicken meat, while 90 percent was supplied by only six proces- sors.
A claim rejected by those processors, who are of the opinion that the current sup-
NSW Farmers president James Jackson said from the hatcheries through to the processing plants and
While supermarket short- ages were as a result of the impact of COVID-19 on the workforce, Mr Jackson was of the belief that the con- centration of ownership in chicken processing played a part in reducing supply options.
NSW Farmers president James Jackson.
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“Chicken processors, red meat processors, truckies and warehouse workers – no one has been spared from COVID,” Mr Jackson said.
“More broadly we have raised the importance of having options in our sup- ply chain so that when one or two big companies have issues – as we have seen recently – our dinner plates aren’t left empty.”
NSW Farmers has de- scribed the chicken meat industry as a “regional mo- nopsony environment”.
Attracting great researchers
WELL, 2022 has cer- tainly not started the way I had hoped.
streamers on a fan. Range access was pro-
Last month I was pro- jecting that 2022 would be the year of connection and prosperity.
vided to all birds at 21 days of age until 42 days of age.
Unfortunately, I have been doing the opposite recently and was bound to home longer than ex- pected due to COVID.
Individual ranging be- haviour of each chicken was monitored via radio frequency identification technology.
However, now that that’s out of the way for the year, I am ready to get the Poultry Hub Australia 2022 plans back on track.
relationship between leg health, environmental enrichment and outside range use.
known and thus Natalie developed a study to in- vestigate the nature and direction of the relation- ship between complex rearing environments, activity, leg health and ranging behaviour of meat chickens.
She took various ana- tomical, physiological, morphological and be- havioural measures of leg health before range access at 18 days of age and after range access at 42 days of age in order to test the hy- potheses – that increased environmental complex- ity would improve leg health and to identify a possible ranging x treat- ment interaction.
This month, I would like to share a story from one of our recently grad- uated PHA supported honours students.
The provision of envi- ronmental enrichment and natural light during rearinghasshowntoim- prove mobility and leg health of fast-growing meat chickens.
PHA sees the impor- tance of supporting great researchers and doing everything it can to at- tract them into the poul- try industry.
Natalie and her team suggest that a combina- tion of genetic and envi- ronmental interventions may be required to im- prove leg health of meat chickens and that the complex relationships be- tween range use, activity and leg health are key to improving chicken wel- fare on free-range com- mercial farms.
Her treatment groups (n = six pen replicates/ treatment; 30 birds/pen) included a control group where birds were raised in industry standard rear- ing environments that contained feeders, drink- ers, wood shaving litter and conspecifics.
The assessments in- cluded latency to lie tests, dermatitis scoring, body weight and bone break- ing strength – 42 days of age only.
With the support of both Australian Eggs and Ag- riFutures Chicken Meat, we awarded two $5000 honours scholarships.
The visual access treat- ment group was provided with visual access to the range from day zero through a clear Perspex ‘pop-hole’ cover.
Natalie found no im- provement to leg health after providing birds with increased environmental complexity or visual ac- cess to an outdoor range.
Natalie Mendes was one of those recipients and she has recently com- pleted her honours degree at the University of New England.
However, the impact of the rearing environ- ment on free-range meat chicken leg health and ranging behaviour is un-
The complexity treat- ment group were provided with a visual barrier, arti- ficial haybale and moving
However, providing visual access to the out- door range during rearing increasing the number of days that the birds access the range and reduced the
Natalie’s project was designed to investigate the impact of the rear- ing environment on meat chicken activity, range use and leg health.
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The $5000 Poultry Hub Australia scholarship has allowed Natalie Mendes to focus on her project and achieve the best possible scientific outcomes.
In Australia, com- mercial free-range meat chickens make up ap- proximately 18-20 per- cent of the chicken meat industry, with the push for free-range chicken meat being largely driv- en by welfare conscious consumer beliefs that outdoor range access is good for chicken welfare.
However, not all chick- ens access the range when they are given the opportunity.
Ms Mendes’ project investigated the potential
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