Delegates at the Northern Broiler Conference heard there were no easy answers to the challenges of avian influenza or obstacles in global trade
Maire Burnett, technical director of the British Poultry Council (BPC) gave the conference an overview of the poultry meat sector at the start of 2025. There was plenty to be positive about, she noted, with chicken accounting for nearly half the meat eaten in the UK (49%) compared with 23% pork and 22% beef.
Both broiler breeder numbers and chick placings held steady last year, she reported. There were 8.1 million broiler breeder placements last year and chick placements saw a 2% increase, Burnett said.
Kill figures for 2024 were just over 1 billion, up 2% on the previous year, with 1.8 million tonnes in carcase weight recorded.
In December however, there was a sharp spike in breeder placements, with an additional 200,000 placed, due, she said “to the move to lower stocking density” meaning additional broiler numbers would be required.
This shift was the most significant issue facing the whole broiler industry, said Burnett, with big ramifications. From April this year, the BPC was predicting 70% of the UK industry would be grown at 30kg per square metre, with just 22% grown at Red Tractor standard 38kg per square metre. The remaining 8% would be made up of other production systems such as organic and free range.
International trade
While the UK produces over a billion broilers a year, that doesn’t meet the UK consumer’s demand for white meat and the country therefore imports around 900,000 tonnes a year, Burnett reported. In turn we as a nation also export some meat, largely dark meat and offal, but less than we import. Last year, the figure was 230,000 tonnes.
Avian influenza has had an impact on trade, as has Brexit, which has made exporting a more difficult and costly process.
The top suppliers into the UK, Burnett reported are Poland at 235,000 tonnes; Thailand at 168,000 tonnes; the Netherlands at 145,000 tonnes; and Brazil at 84,000 tonnes. Ukraine is also a notable importer of poultrymeat to the UK, with 31,000 tonnes in 2024 “Imports from Ukraine have more than doubled in past two years due to liberalisation of trade following the outbreak of war,” Burnett noted.
Our export markets are different. The leading markets for British poultrymeat are the Netherlands, which took 82,000 tonnes last year; Ireland which took 28,000 tonnes; Belgium, which had 17,000 tonnes and Ghana, which took 13,000 tonnes.
Avian flu
Burnett provided an overview of the current avian influenza situation. As she spoke on 11 February there were 34 cases in UK, with the main affected areas the East Riding of Yorkshire, Norfolk, and Shropshire.
Turkeys were the most affected species, followed by ducks and laying hens and a there were also a number of cases in backyard flocks.
Burnett outlined the global picture, highlighting that the EU was still reporting cases and there have been over 300 cases since the season began on 1 October, affecting 23 countries.
In Asia, Japan is reporting cases weekly and same is true in the US. “In fact, cases in the US have been rising,” said Burnett. “The laying hen and turkey sectors are the most badly affected.” She also noted that the worrying transmission from poultry to dairy herds is ongoing, with over 900 cases recorded over the past year.
Vaccination
Vaccinating poultry against avian influenza is a contentious topic and Burnett outlined the current thinking in the BPC and government.
Two years ago, a joint industry taskforce was set up with government, exploring the options for a UK vaccination programme. It examined issues such as the costs, the impacts on trade, and our veterinary capacity to administer such a programme.
The task force is due to issues its final report later this spring.
On the topic of vaccination, Burnett said the BPC supported the “principles of vaccination policy but at the moment we can’t agree to it until we resolve the trade issues that would impact particularly on primary breeding.”
She added the cost of surveillance is an additional factor that does not make it cost efficient.
She talked about vaccination programmes in other markets, such as France, where despite the decision to vaccinate ducks, two cases have been confirmed in vaccinated ducks. She said the pilot study currently underway in the Netherlands in a flock of laying hens would feed into decision making in the UK.
Newcastle disease was also a topic of conversation because of a recent outbreak in Poland that Burnett described as “a cause for concern with 28 cases in commercial broilers”. The Polish authorities have adopted mandatory vaccination in the affected areas.
Progress on welfare
Welfare was also on the agenda, with Defra’s Animal Health & Welfare Pathway up for discussion.
The welfare in transport reforms were proposed under the previous government and there is still no clear steer from government about what would be taken forward, however Burnett said the BPC was working on the assumption Defra would take forward the proposals, which include a maximum transport time of four hours for broilers and temperature controlled vehicles to ensure birds were not exposed to temperatures outside of the range 5-25 degrees Celsius.
Burnett told delegates they needed to become familiar with the EU’s welfare in transport proposals 2023, because they will automatically apply in Northern Ireland and “the UK will probably move to closer alignment with EU.”
The key change broiler growers need to know relates to handling, as the rules require that birds must be caught by both legs rather than one, and catchers must have a maximum of three birds per hand.
There is fierce opposition in the EU to part of the proposals, which include limiting journey times to 12 hours maximum, and 24 hours for day old poultry.
Draft legislation is expected to be presented before the end of the year, and legislation is likely to be in place within two years.
Brexit
Five years since the UK’s formal exit from the EU, there were still inconsistencies at the borders, said Burnett and outstanding issues that needed to be resolved in order to improve trade. “We would like to see an SPS agreement involving frictionless trade,” she said. “Imports are subject to checks on about 1% of consignments, the other way there are about 15% checks,” she said. At the moment, the government red lines are that it will not join the single market or customs union, but other things would ease pressures considerable, such as moving to e certification, Burnett said.
Artificial intelligence
David Speller of Optifarm spoke to the conference about the future of technology and artificial intelligence in poultry farming.
Precision poultry farming hasn’t been wholly successful, he said. “Lots of investors walked away and companies have shut down.”
He described how stock people are often “right brain thinkers”, who have a desire to care for the birds, but are not necessarily the most logical thinkers.
There are new possibilities driven by artificial intelligence, said Speller, which could involve artificial intelligence taking care of “all the logical parts and the farmer can take care of the chickens.”
He gave the example of how water metres are now capable of predicting water consumption in the near future of 15 minutes, based on water consumption in the immediate past. There are clear links to the birds’ productivity and health, purely on water metre data. “You can quickly tell if their immune system is challenged,” said Speller. “The future of these systems will be large language models like Chat GPT, so you can type in a question about the birds’ health or speak into a smart speaker and AI will interpret all the data being gathered on the farm and produce an answer that the stock person can then act upon.
One of the potential risks of artificial intelligence was the possibility of fake videos. It was becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between what was real and fake online, said Speller. “How will industry defend itself against enemies?” who may wish to spread false information about animal welfare for example.
He concluded by saying the only way was to have a strong brand reputation for the poultry industry generally and individual businesses too, in order to counter false information.
A vet’s view
Later in the conference, vet Sara Perez, founder of Poultry Health Services spoke to the conference about the health and welfare implications of the move towards lower stocking densities.
She said the assumption generally was that lower stocking densities would translate into better health and welfare, including reduced leg problems, better litter and less pododermatitis.
In her presentation, Perez reviewed the data and found some surprising outcomes, including that levels of lesions on birds’ legs and feet had actually increased between 2020 and 2022.
“I would have expected we would have reduced podo,” she said. “It is an iceberg welfare issue, continual contact with wet litter. But can also be related to other uses such as gut health, water management, litter management and ventilation.”
The next issue she reviewed was leg problems, particularly recorded cases of birds unable to stand with splayed legs. These problems had reduced in line with the stocking density reduction, which Perez said, could be related to more activity in sheds.
Cellulitis is another health problem in birds caused by scratches that get infected. When processed, the birds display yellow areas on their skin and they are rejected at the plant. According to the FSA data, the level of rejects for cellulitis decreased, and Perez said this could be a result of lower stocking densities.
Other issues including ascites, general infections such as perihepatitis and peritonitis, had also reduced as stocking densities had also come down.
However a couple of other problems such as abnormal muscle colour, which can be caused by dehydration, and also birds dead on arrival at the processing plant, had actually increased.
In conclusion, Perez said there were some promising signs that reducing stocking density had improved bird health and welfare, but some indicators had worsened and at this stage there was too little detail to present a compelling case.