Page 8 - National Poultry News

KFC plans to print edible chicken nuggets in lab
COVID-19 infects Ingham’s workers and shuts down Thomastown plant
POULTRY proces- sor Ingham’s says it does not expect the temporary closure of its Melbourne pro- cessing plant due to a coronavirus outbreak among staff will hurt company profits or supplies to custom- ers.
sites in Australia, and three New Zealand processing plants, re- main operating and unaffected.
the company’s supply chain and operations to manage social dis- tancing protocols, in- cluding temporarily suspending production of some value-added products.
Managing director Jim Leighton said Ing- ham’s had contingency plans in place for its 11 meat plants around Australia for several months in case they were caught up in any virus outbreak.
Ingham’s was work- ing with its customers to minimise any sup- ply chain disruptions and ensure its products remained available to consumers Australia- wide.
Out of home markets for poultry product were hit by the fall in restaurant and tourism food service business associated with COV- ID-19 lockdowns, but Ingham’s had respond- ed by implementing cost control measures including closely man- aging its inventory and working capital and halting new staff re- cruiting plans.
Closing the Thomas- town site was a “pro- active step on our part – we are well prepared to manage through this disruption”, Mr Leighton said.
Ingham’s has more than 300 poultry hatcheries, broiler farms, primary and further meat process- ing plants, rendering sites and stockfeed mills across Australia and New Zealand.
Mr Leighton said a strong balance sheet and good access to li- quidity and funding, plus significant head- room available on its borrowing covenants, were working in the company’s favour.
The company shut down a further pro- cessing plant in Mel- bourne’s north when five workers tested positive for COVID-19 and all employees were sent home to self- quarantine.
In May, the company reported the coronavi- rus emergency had pre- sented unprecedented challenges requiring swift realignment of
First appeared on farmonline.com.au
Mr Leighton said the Thomastown closure was not expected to materially impact the business’ financial re- sults for 2020-21.
The Victorian De- partment of Health has been working with the company to ensure all necessary protocols were being followed at the plant.
“Ingham’s has worked diligently throughout the COV- ID-19 pandemic to maintain the highest standards of health and safety for our peo- ple, while maintaining flexibility to ensure we service our cus- tomers and consumers through this period of uncertainty.
“It is imperative we continue to do every- thing possible to en- sure the health and safety of our people, communities and to assist in controlling the spread of corona- virus,” Mr Leighton said.
The company’s other
FAMOUS for its chick- en, a bold new plan by KFC could mean it doesn’t sell the bird in its thousands of restau- rants around the world.
house gases, the company claims.
trends and innovations and doing our best to keep up with the times by introducing advanced technologies to our res- taurant networks.
tally friendly methods of food production.”
Technically the com- pany will still be making chicken though there will be one huge difference – it will not originate from an egg.
KFC partnered with 3D Bioprinting Solutions, a lab started by Russian medical giant Invitro, manufactures bioprinters and food printers among other projects.
“Crafted meat prod- ucts are the next step in the development of our ‘restaurant of the future’ concept.
Bioprinted meat has the same microelements as “the original product” – but it’s actually better, the company said.
To create “meat of the future”, the company wants to use chicken stem cells to create 3D print- edible chicken.
3D bioprinting was be- coming increasingly pop- ular for food production as global dietary trends change, the Russian com- pany’s co-founder and managing director Yusef Khesuani said.
“Our experiment in test- ing 3D bioprinting tech- nology to create chicken products can also help address several looming global problems.
Bioprinting causes no harm to animals and, KFC claims, avoids “var- ious additives used in traditional farming and animal husbandry.”
Virtually removing the last letter from the chick- en chain giant’s name by creating lab-grown meat for use in its products.
“In future, the rapid de- velopment of such tech- nologies will allow us to make 3D-printed meat products more accessible and we are hoping the technology created as a result of our co-operation with KFC will help accel- erate the launch of cell- based meat products on the market,” Mr Khesu- ani said.
“We are glad to con- tribute to its development and are working to make it available to thousands of people in Russia and, if possible, around the world.”
There is “no way” the company uses “artificial hormones or steroids”, according to KFC’s Aus- tralian website, and the company “demands high levels of animal welfare standards” from its local chicken suppliers, which are required to be mem- bers of the Australian Chicken Meat Federation.
The technique the company plans to use is known as 3D bioprinting and is already used in medicine.
According to a com- pany statement, KFC’s concept is a response to “the growing popular- ity of a healthy lifestyle and nutrition, the annual increase in demand for alternatives to traditional meat and the need to de- velop more environmen-
The company stopped using chickens fed human antibiotics in the US in 2017 over fears of antibi- oticresistance.
Bioprinting to repro- duce meat will cut energy usage in half, use 100 times less land than tra- ditional farming and emit 25 times fewer green-
KFC Russia general manager Raisa Polyako- va said, “We are closely monitoring all the latest
It has also experimented with plant-based products in the past.
Scientists are getting better at reproducing meat in labs from animal stem cells.
KFC plans to stop selling ‘traditional’ chickens. Picture: Karen Bleier/AFP Source: AFP
Page 8 – National Poultry Newspaper, August 2020
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