Stocking densities, politics and new technology were all up for discussion at a lively Poultry Meat Conference this month. Michael Barker reports
The move to 30kg stocking densities was the hot topic at the Poultry Meat Conference in Grantham on 17 September, with suppliers and retailers alike agreeing the move is a positive one for both the industry and consumers.
The majority of retailers have lowered their stocking densities for fresh chicken to 30kg per square metre in the past year, providing 20% more space to broilers. While that has caused a degree of upheaval in the supply chain as processors rush to secure supplies, it has generally been seen as a positive move in the face of NGO and activist pressure.
Describing the development as the biggest thing happening in the sector right now, David Neilson, agriculture director at major chicken supplier Avara Foods, stressed that the move essentially meets all of the asks of the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) but without the change of breed, which would have been very costly and priced out some consumers from the category. “For me, this is a really good, positive move on welfare and a huge investment in welfare for UK retail,” he said. “I wholeheartedly support it.”
Joseph Keating, senior agriculture manager at the Co-op, said the move had gone down well with its members who had pushed for change, but admitted pressure was likely to continue as the retailer seeks a balance between the needs of consumers, producers and its own profitability. Co-op members originally brought a resolution to the retailer’s board last year that requested an improvement to chicken welfare standards and a move to the BCC, but the board ultimately decided that lowering stocking densities was the best option and made the switch to 30kg back in February. “That [move] was planned for the end of this year but we’ve done it 12 months ahead of schedule,” Keating explained. “When it comes to slower-growing breeds, you’re trying to balance welfare but also [thinking about] where our consumers are, the cost of implementation, the impact it would have on primary and retail costs, and the willingness of people to pay for it – which we don’t think is there yet. So we decided that moving on breed is not right for the Co-op at this time.”
Going forward, Keating said the Co-op plans to apply the stocking density change not just to fresh chicken but value-added lines such as breaded as well, as part of a continuous process to drive animal welfare improvements. “This isn’t the destination, but a point on the journey,” he added. “Whether that’s a different breed or not [I don’t know], but as the Co-op we are still getting a lot of attention, and a lot of activism. We have some very active members who really do care about what we sell and the British message, but they also care about welfare and how we strike that balance. So I don’t think it’s ever going to go away as an issue or a topic for discussion.”
For Neilson, while the move to 30kg is unquestionably positive, he also warned of some “unintended consequences”, and was quick to denounce suggestions that as farmers’ margins have improved in the past six months, that meant they had it good. Instead, he stressed it just meant earnings were getting back to sustainable levels with a chance for reinvestment.
Neilson said the broiler industry is feeling “a little bit more buoyant now and a lot more positive,” but that message came with a caveat, namely that the shelf price of chicken has a ceiling. Citing the examples of recent struggles in the egg and milk sectors, he warned: “This isn’t the chance of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, because supply and demand economics and what happens in other commodity sectors tells you what is going to happen if price continues to push beyond what people want to pay. This move to 30kg for chicken is an efficient way of improving welfare, but I don’t think any of us would think it’s just an opportunity to push price in a short market, because we’ve got to be aware of what the unintended consequences are.” Those consequences, clearly, are the threat of declining sales by pricing shoppers out of the category if the drive for higher welfare ends up pushing the shelf price too high.
The message that 30kg means higher welfare, well-performing, affordable chicken with a good carbon footprint is also one that needs to be communicated to the public to avoid being drowned out by NGO messaging, Neilson stressed. “The standard bird we grow today is capable of fantastic welfare outcomes, and we have got to go on working really hard to improve those, and sell that message to our customers and consumers,” he concluded.
Engaging with the new government
Away from welfare, one of the other big topics at the conference surrounded the new political landscape. In the wake of a new UK government, NFU poultry adviser Tom Glen outlined what the union wants to see from the administration and how farmers can get involved. Admitting the government “hasn’t got off to the best start”, Glen noted that Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned of a tough couple of years ahead, and that could include cuts to public spending at a time when there’s a lack of meaningful opposition in Parliament. “We will have to be really strategic about how we lobby for poultry sector interests in this Parliament,” he said.
Glen noted that as shadow minister in recent years, new Defra minister for food security and rural affairs Daniel Zeichner was helpful in putting forward questions in Parliament to ask for industry support during the AI outbreak. It is hoped that as both Zeichner and Defra secretary Steve Reed spent the past four years learning the farming brief, they will hit the ground running, Glen added.
Starmer has spoken of wanting his government to be “mission-led”, and in its manifesto the Labour Party set out five key goals – kickstarting economic growth, making Britain a clean-energy superpower, making the streets safer, breaking down barriers to opportunity, and building an NHS fit for the future. The NFU therefore plans to frame its asks and lobbying of government around these policy objectives, and specifically those around economic growth and clean energy. “If we are going to influence decisions, we need to be speaking Labour’s language,” he said.
The NFU Poultry Board’s mission statement for this Parliament is “to protect, promote and progress the interests of poultry producers within the wider work of the NFU”. That broadly breaks down into six areas: fairness in the supply chain; enabling investment via planning regulation reform; championing poultry’s environmental credentials; increasing confidence via access to a reliable workforce; proactively managing sector reputation, risk and resilience; and identifying market opportunities domestically and abroad.
Producers can play their part too, Glen said. The NFU is urging farmers to engage with their local MP – particularly if they are newly elected – and make them a stakeholder in the business by inviting them to the farm or discussing key issues with them. Farmers should also speak to MPs in a language they understand and keep the messaging simple.
Talking tech
Elsewhere at the conference, there were two further presentations focused on technical innovation. Nick Munce and Michael McCreesh of MSD gave a detailed report on the subject of “acting on data monitoring insights to transform broiler outcomes”, explaining how SenseHub Poultry technology can give the industry an edge. “SenseHub Poultry is about empowerment – it’s about accurate data that enables people to make informed choices,” Munce said of the company’s performance insights technology, which uses automated data from multiple sensors deployed in a wireless retrofit manner onto boiler farms. An analytics platform provides insights to users.
And Will Raw of Mill Poultry explained how the Pondus camera system is providing real-time data to inform the business’s on-farm decisions. The technology has three key strands for poultry management. The first focuses on autonomous measurement and monitoring of bird behaviour, growth and welfare using computer vision and artificial intelligence. The surveillance strand is all about giving users a real-time bird’s eye view of sheds to support remote management. And the third helps with digitised management recording, with intelligent features to auto-calculate KPIs and trends, as well as alerts to flag up potential issues.