Page 12 - National Poultry Newspaper

Chicken giant cites unprecedented
challenges from COVID-19
ANZ victory in 2020 WorldStar Packaging Special Awards
THE Australian Insti- tute of Packaging has announced two short- listed Australian and New Zealand compa- nies have received the 2020 WorldStar Pack- aging special awards in their categories.
Lewis Road Creamery PCR 100 percent-recy- cled PET milk bottle range received the gold 2020 sustainability spe- cial award.
Zealand received the highest number of spe- cial awards and the third-highest number of WorldStar Packag- ing Awards in the world this year, with a total of 21 awards.
The other two Aus- tralian and New Zea- land finalists were awarded silver and bronze awards.
The silver award in the same category went to Woolworths Austral- ia for replacing plastic trays with pulp-based trays in all stores for over 50 of its in-store bakery products.
This was a signifi- cant achievement for the Australian and New Zealand packaging in- dustries, and for the Australian Institute of Packaging who has led the annual Australasian Packaging Innovation and Design Awards, which are the exclusive feeder program for the WorldStar Packaging Awards for the region.
Australian Hazeldene’s Chicken Farm and sealed air for Cryovac Darfresh on tray vacuum skin technology received the gold 2020 packaging that saves food special award.
The bronze winner of the 2020 World Pack- aging Organisation president’s award was Plantic Technologies for the Plantic RV ma- terial, designed for the Moana seafood compa- ny to enable supply of fresh fish to the online meal delivery company My Food Bag.
Entries for the 2021 Australasian Packaging Innovation and Design Awards will be open in late 2020.
The packaging was engineered to address food safety, extend shelf life 25 percent over the previously used modified atmos- phere packaging format and improve on-pack communication.
This was the first time an Australian and New Zealand entry had won an award in this cat- egory.
Due to the pandemic, the winners will receive their special awards at Interpack in Dusseldorf Germany on February 26, 2021.
PACT Group for the New Zealand brand
Winners from across Australia and New
THE ASX-listed chick- en producer Ingham’s said the boost from panic buying at super- markets has stopped and demand for its products has been hit by COV- ID-19 restrictions.
but warned COVID-19 lockdown rules in New Zealand meant this was uncertain.
complexity, and stopped the production of some valuable products.”
well as wholesale.
“We expect these trends
Ingham’s said it had been on track to record better earnings this half than in the first half of the financial year, but warned market volatility made it hard to predict what would happen with demand over the next nine weeks.
Ingham’s told the mar- ket it had a strong balance sheet and good access to liquidity and funding.
“We estimate these channels account for about 40 percent of vol- umes, but could be over half of earnings.”
In its first update to the market since the corona- virus pandemic worsened in March and April, Ing- ham’s said its New Zea- land division had been on track for a better re- sult this year than last,
Market consensus had been for full year EBIT- DA of $190 million.
Ingham’s chief execu- tive Jim Leighton said, “Initially in Australia COVID-19 restrictions created a temporary surge in retail sales but as consumer behaviour normalised, store traffic has decreased and shop- ping behaviours altered.
The company placed a freeze on new hires, de- ferred capital expenditure and reduced discretion- ary spending to manage costs.
accelerated in April as the social isolation direc- tives were in place across the month.
“COVID-19 has pre- sented unprecedented challenges and we have executed a swift realign- ment of our supply chain and operations in order to manage substantial op- erational issues created by mandatory social dis- tancing protocols.”
Ingham’s recorded an underlying EBITDA of $91.7 million in the first half.
Ingham’s is one of Australia’s two biggest chicken meat producers, with its products stocked by McDonald’s and KFC, supermarkets and many small businesses such as cafes and take-away out- lets.
“This had increased costs, inefficiency and
In a note to clients Citi analyst Craig Woolford said, “The company noted quick service res- taurants and foodservice channels are down, as
The company’s shares closed down 0.9 percent at $3.38 on a day the Aus- tralian stock exchange rose 1.4 percent.
More eggs and lower emissions report released
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A LAYING hen in 2020 lays 38 more eggs per year than a hen did 20 years ago, and it does so despite consuming 5 percent less feed.
vassed the views of thou- sands of Australians to help egg farmers better understand evolving com- munity expectations.
husbandry standards, and created a new risk assess- ment tool to help farmers stay profitable.
framework report com- pletes the second annual cycle of a three-year pro- gram of engagement with Australians, designed to ensure the industry farms eggs in a manner that is socially, environmentally and economically sustain- able.
That equals an extra 800 million eggs each year across Australia’s national flock, produced with 42,000 tonnes less grain and an emissions saving of 30,000 tonnes of carbon.
Australian Eggs manag- ing director Rowan Mc- Monnies said the indus- try is lowering its carbon footprint and better con- serving resources in line with evolving mainstream community expectations.
“We’re making these improvements because they’re the right thing to do but it was pleasing to see in the CSIRO’s com- munity research report that trust in the egg in- dustry increased over the last year.”
The full report is avail- able by visiting australi aneggs.org.au
These improvements are highlighted in the latest Australian Egg industry sustainability report re- leased March 2020, which demonstrates how the egg industry is progressing in important areas such as environment, hen welfare, food security and rural livelihoods.
“Eggs are in 95 percent of Australian households and are a staple in the na- tional diet,” Mr McMon- nies said.
The 2020 sustainability
w
The report released by Australian Eggs, the egg industry’s national re- search body, comes after CSIRO researchers can-
“Sustainability is more than just good environ- mental stewardship, so we’ve also invested in a significant up-skilling of the national egg farm workforce to raise animal
Page 12 – National Poultry Newspaper, May 2020
www.poultrynews.com.au
Other advancements include biosecurity im- provements through a new virtual-reality training module for farm work- ers, a solar energy fea- sibility tool, animal hus- bandry training for every egg farm in the country, and new waste manage- ment technology turning manure into high-grade organic fertiliser.
“While eggs already have a low carbon foot- print relative to other farming industries, the CSIRO’s community re- search revealed that Aus- tralians expect to see all industries reducing their impacts over time.
“Productivity improve- ments in the egg industry have coincided with a low- ering of an already small environmental footprint through better genetics, improved farm manage- ment, uptake of on-farm solar and new waste man- agement technologies.