What's New ? - 2020

EU poultry production is expected to be the only meat category to grow between 2020 and 2030 (+620,000 t or +4.6%), building on its recent performance while adapting better to consumer demand and becoming more sustainable. It is the only sector to have expanded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, even without increased exports. In the medium term, production growth should benefit from significant investments, which capitalise on lower costs in eastern European countries, as well as from increasing prices. EU demand for poultry meat has been rising consistently for many years, as consumers perceive it to be healthy. The COVID-19 lockdown measures strengthened the importance of affordability and convenience of poultry meat for homecooking. The EU per capita consumption of poultry meat, supported by imports of breast meat, is projected to reach 24.6 kg per capita by 2030 (1.2 kg more than 2020). It is likely that EU consumers may not return to pigmeat even if it becomes more avail

Domestic sales and distribution of medically important antimicrobials approved for use in food producing animals: - increased by 3% from 2018 through 2019. - decreased by 25% from 2010 through 2019. - Tetracyclines, which represent the largest volume of these domestic sales (4,117,031 kg in 2019), increased by 4% from 2018 through 2019.

The U.S. animal protein sector is expected to face a 12% increase in feed costs in 2021, which will mark the highest year-over-year inflation since 2011. Much of the increase in feed prices is being driven by Chinese demand for grain as it rebuilds its hog herd and overall animal protein supply after African Swine Fever (ASF) ravaged its herd the last couple of years.

The US Poultry & Egg Association (USPOULTRY), National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation and United Egg Producers have released an economic impact study that displayed the jobs, wages, and federal and state revenue in the United States. The report showed that US poultry industry provides 2,139,617 jobs and $121.1 billion in wages. The study said the economic activity provided by the poultry industry was $576.6 billion with $41.9 billion in government revenue.

Singapore has given U.S. start-up Eat Just the greenlight to sell its lab-grown chicken meat, in what the firm says is the world's first regulatory approval for so-called clean meat that does not come from slaughtered animals. The meat, to be sold as nuggets, will be priced at premium chicken prices when it first launches in a restaurant in Singapore.

Lead shot is to be banned from all wetlands in the European Union, in a decision that is expected to pave the way for phasing out all toxic ammunition. The ban will ensure that any wildfowl or waterbirds are shot with non-toxic steel ammunition after scientific studies found that 1 million waterbirds are killed by lead poisoning each year.

Data were collected for the period 2013 through 2017 and are reported on a calendar year basis. The data supplied by participating companies represented approximately 67.3% of turkey production in the United States in 2013 and increased to approximately 69.8% in 2017. The estimated percentage of turkey poults placed that received hatchery antimicrobials decreased from 96% in 2013 to 41% in 2017. Medically important in‐feed antimicrobial use decreased substantially.

Data were collected for the period 2013 through 2017 and are reported on a calendar year basis. The data supplied by participating companies accounted for approximately 81.7% of broiler production in the United States in 2013 and increased to approximately 87.2% in 2017. The data that were submitted for 2017 are based on approximately 7,897,339,357 chicks placed, 7,541,449,430 chickens slaughtered and 48,225,124,865 pounds liveweight produced. The use of antimicrobials in the hatchery decreased substantially between 2013 and 2017; the approximate percentage of broiler chicks placed that received hatchery antimicrobials decreased from 93% in 2013 to 17% in 2017.

The RUMA 2020 report highlights the tremendous achievements and progress that have been made across the UK livestock sectors since the original targets were set at the end of 2017. In the UK, antibiotic use in food producing animals has halved since 2014 and over the same period the use of Highest Priority Critically Important Antibiotics for human health has reduced by 75%, and sales of colistin are virtually nil. This has been achieved primarily through voluntary activities with, for example, support from industry bodies, codes of practice and farm assurance schemes. Overall sales (mg/kg) in the UK in 2019 were 31mg/kg, some 50% lower than in 2014.

Following its U.S. launch, Zero Egg, a plant-based egg alternative for foodservice and food manufacturers, announced that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Powerplant Ventures, and joined by existing investors Unovis Asset Management-New Crop Capital and Strauss Group-The Kitchen Hub. The company will use this funding to grow the brand in the U.S. and support its ambitious new product launches in the coming year. With 100 billion eggs consumed each year in the U.S. alone, Zero Egg is focusing on providing affordable, versatile and tasty plant-based egg products.

More than every second chicken meat sample (51%) from the three largest poultry companies in Europe is contaminated with resistance to one or even several antibiotics at the same time, according to new study published on behalf of the environmental and consumer protection organization Germanwatch and Ärzte gegen Massentierhaltung. The study tested 165 chicken meat samples from the three largest groups in the EU, purchased among others from Lidl and Aldi in Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands and Spain. On average, more than every third chicken (35%) even carries antibiotic-resistant pathogens with resistance to critically important antimicrobials highest priority (CIA HP) into the food chain. According to the survey, the samples from the poultry company PHW showed the highest contamination rate, with antibiotic-resistant pathogens found in 59 percent of the chicken meat samples.

Pilgrim’s Pride, one of the largest poultry producers in the United States, said today that it would pay $110.5 million to settle federal charges that it helped fix prices and then passed on higher costs for chicken to consumers, restaurants and supermarkets. The company, based in Colorado, said it had agreed to the fine for “restraint of competition” in chicken sales in three contracts to a customer in the United States, according to the statement. The settlement, reached with the Department of Justice, will need to be approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The settlement comes after federal prosecutors ramped up pressure on top industry executives. In June, prosecutors indicted Jayson Penn, who was then president and chief executive of Pilgrim’s Pride, and Roger Austin, its former vice president, on a price-fixing charge. Mr. Penn later left the company.

January 2021 sees the introduction of a new requirement for Lion Code producers to hold and complete a Training Passport as part of their membership of the Lion Code of Practice – a major milestone in the project that has been several years in development. Benefits of the Lion Training Passport scheme include the provision of portable training records, which follow an individual should they move organisation, reducing the need for re-training in the same subjects that the individual has already been trained in.

Royal DSM, a global science-based company in Nutrition, Health and Sustainable Living, announces the completion of its acquisition of Erber Group for an enterprise value of €980 million. DSM acquired Erber Group’s Biomin and Romer Labs. Erber Group’s specialty animal nutrition and health business Biomin specializes primarily in mycotoxin risk management and gut health performance management, whereas the Romer Labs business focuses on food and feed safety diagnostic solutions. Both expand DSM’s range of higher value-add specialty solutions. The acquisition of Erber Group’s Biomin further strengthens DSM’s expertise and reputation as a leading provider of animal health and nutrition solutions for farm productivity and sustainability, with an emphasis on emissions reduction, feed consumption efficiency, and better use of water and land.

A new research conducted by Anglo-Norwegian researchers found that slower growing broiler chickens are healthier and have more fun than conventional breeds of fast growing birds. The study showed that, while providing chickens with space had benefits, by slightly lowering the animal density, changing to a slower‑growing breed resulted in much better health and more positive experiences for these birds. The commercial-scale farm trial explored a comprehensive suite of positive and negative welfare indicators in four production systems varying in stocking density and breed. One slower growing breed (the slowest) was stocked at a planned maximum density of 30 kg/m2, a second slower growing breed at planned densities of 30 kg/m2 and 34 kg/m2, and the welfare outcomes were compared to those of a standard fast-growing breed stocked at 34kg/m2.

Total antibiotic use on farms raising chickens, ducks, and turkeys fell by 76% from 2012 through 2019, and the use of critically important antibiotics - those also used in human medicine - declined by 97.3%.

Estimated Saudi 2019 and 2020 chicken meat production is increased to 800,000 and 930,000 MT,respectively. Now that the Kingdom’s domestic production exceeds the targeted 60 percent self-sufficiency level, the government is trying to increase the self-sufficiency level to 80 percent by 2025. An outbreak of avian influenza (H5N8) in layer farms in early February 2020 reduced the country’s table egg production by approximately 30 percent. Once stocks were depleted, the country experienced an egg shortage and the retail price of table eggs increased by more than 50 percent. The shortage was compounded by increased in-home consumption due to COVID 19. Saudi per capita poultry meat consumption in 2019 is estimated at 40kg - high compared to other animal proteins.

A study by agricultural economists at Michigan State University and Perdue University quantified the effects of COVID-19 on prices and volumes of shell-egg and egg-liquid sales by segments of the U.S. industry. The study uses evidence from the egg industry to investigate how the shift from food-away-from-home and towards food-at-home affected the U.S. food supply chain. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic increased retail and farm-gate prices for table eggs by approximately 141% and 182%, respectively. In contrast, prices for breaking stock eggs-which are primarily used in foodservice and restaurants-fell by 67%. On April 3, 2020, the FDA responded by issuing temporary exemptions from certain food safety standards for breaking stock egg producers seeking to sell into the retail table egg market. This regulatory change rapidly pushed retail, farm-gate, and breaking stock prices towards their long-run pre-pandemic equilibrium dynamics.

The USDA will stop requiring U.S. plants that produce egg products to have full-time government inspectors. Under a new rule that takes effect immediately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allow companies to use different food-safety systems and procedures designed for their factories and equipment. This move will ease government regulations over the nation's food system. Some inspectors and public-interest groups have warned food safety may suffer as a result. The new rule affects 83 plants that USDA has been inspecting. USDA will also assume oversight from the Food and Drug Administration of additional facilities that produce egg substitutes.

Study finds white striping disease in 85 percent of standard factory-farmed chicken on the shelves of the top UK supermarkets. White striping is a muscle disease that is reported to impact 50-90% of fast growing chickens, and is a consequence of fast growth rates. This changes the appearance, texture and, crucially, reduces the nutritional value of the meat by increasing the fat content. The Humane League UK set out to investigate whether the ‘standard’ chicken breast meat on British supermarket shelves had similar levels of white striping disease to those reported in scientific journals.

Canada projects modest production growth for 2021, with chicken meat production forecast to reach 1.315 million metric tons (MMT), 2 percent above the estimated 2020 level. Canada estimates 2020 chicken meat production at 1.29 MMT, down 3 percent from 2019.

In 2020, Mexico’s chicken meat production was 3.675 million metric tons and is expected to slightly improve in 2021 with a growth rate of up to 3 percent. Due to pandemic emergency measures, Mexico’s hotel, restaurant, and institutional sector has suffered a reduction of more than 30 percent in demand. However, household demand for chicken meat has grown due to chicken meat’s higher affordability over pork and beef. Mexico’s turkey production is not expected to grow by much more than 1 percent from marketing year (MY) 2020 to MY 2021, as producers continue to switch from turkey to chicken for a quicker and higher profit. Turkey production in Mexico is becoming more for self-consumption and has become even more regionalized.

Boston Market Corp. has filed a federal lawsuit against a group of poultry companies, alleging the companies conspired to manipulate the price of broilers from 2008 to 2017, costing Boston Market Corp. hundreds of millions of dollars in overcharges, according to DTN Progressive Farmer.

COVID-19 not only impacted chicken meat production in early 2020, but also had a profound effect on chicken meat demand. With the closure of restaurants, schools, canteens, and other food processing factories, demand for chicken meat fell significantly. While there was an increase in take-out, delivery, and home-prepared meals, overall chicken meat demand fell, arresting the ongoing expansion. According to the National Statistics Bureau (NSB), China’s poultry meat output in first quarter of 2020 was 5.23 million tons, an increase of 1.1 percent from the same period of 2019, which is much lower than the expected rate of increase. Note, that the NSB statistics only report total “poultry meat” output, which includes other poultry and waterfowl. The relative increase of broilers would be slightly higher. Since January 1, 2020, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) reported six highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks to the World Animal Health Organization (OIE

Over the outlook period, global livestock production is expected to expand by 14% supported by low feed prices and stable product prices ensuring remunerative profit margins to producers. Poultry is expected to be the fastest growing meat, with a projected increase in production of 16% (20 Mt).This accounts for about half of the projected increase in total meat output.

Tyson Foods announced it is the first company to receive audit certification for all poultry across its supply chain after its FarmCheck® Animal Welfare Program completed the certification of company-wide poultry audits from the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO). PAACO recently certified FarmCheck® audits for both breeders and turkeys, bringing the company’s total certified poultry audits to three, following broiler chicken certification by PAACO in 2019.

China will close all live poultry markets in a step-by-step manner in a bid to reduce public health risks. China will crack down on the illegal wildlife trade, ban the consumption of wild animals, and impose restrictions on the trade and slaughter of live poultry. Authorities will step up supervision over farmers' markets to ensure food safety amid the COVID-19 epidemic. China has 44,000 farmers' markets nationwide, including more than 4,100 wholesale markets.

A new bill being signed into law will require all Colorado eggs to be cage-free by 2025. Colorado’s cage ban will free 5.5 million hens from a lifetime of confinement in cages. Colorado joins Washington, Oregon, Michigan and California as the fifth state in the United States to ban cages. Egg producers estimate it will cost them about $30 per bird, totaling about $165 million for the industry in Colorado.

An extensive study, by Chinese researchers, of the bird’s full genome concludes that people in northern Southeast Asia or southern China domesticated a colorful pheasant sometime after about 7500 B.C.E. Migrants and traders then carried the bird across Asia and on to every continent except Antarctica. These results contradict previous claims that chickens were domesticated in northern China and the Indus Valley. Charles Darwin argued the chicken descended from the red jungle fowl; he speculated that domestication happened in India. The Chinese researchers sequenced the full genomes of 863 birds and compared them. The results suggest modern chickens descend primarily from domesticated and wild varieties in whatis now Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and southern China. This region is a center of domestication.

A court in the Netherlands found two disinfection companies, Chickfriend and Chickclean, liable in a 2017 fipronil egg scandal. The court said the firms had failed to fulfill contractual agreements to poultry farmers who took them to court. Based on evidence, the court assumed the owners knew that the Dega-16 product contained fipronil and that its use to control red mites is prohibited. Dega-16 was presented to customers as an agent consisting of eucalyptus oil and menthol (essential oils). The judgment comes more than two-and-a-half years after the food scare, which caused millions of eggs to be pulled from shelves and led to more than three million chickens being slaughtered. The court assumes that the owners knew that Dega-16 contained fipronil and that its use for the control of red mite was prohibited.

The European Commission announced new targets for reducing sales of antibiotics used on farms and in aquaculture. The strategy sets concrete targets to transform the EUs food system, including a reduction by 50% of the use of pesticides, a reduction by at least 20% of the use of fertilizers, a reduction by 50% in sales of antimicrobials used for farmed animals and aquaculture, and reaching 25% of agricultural land under organic farming by 2030. Commission officials say the strategy will enable the EU to transition to a sustainable food system that safeguards food security, ensures access to healthy diets, reduces the environmental and climate footprint of the EU food system, and strengthens resilience to future pandemics.

In a letter to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), World Animal Protection (WAP) is calling AVMA culling methods - which include water-based foam generators, ventilation shutdown - inhumane that must be immediately removed from AVMA guidelines. "Ventilation shutdown (VSD) and water-based foam (WBF) should never be used to cull or 'euthanize' farmed animals. Both methods are inhumane as they fail to ensure immediate unconsciousness and insensibility or immediate death without distress. Instead, they cause distress and extreme suffering via prolonged heat stress or conditions for suffocation and often further delays with practical complications".

KFC China is launching vegan chicken nuggets for the first time ever amid growing interest in China’s meat-alternative industry. The announcement follows successful trials of vegan chicken at KFC in the U.S. and Europe. The nuggets are made by major U.S. meat producer, Cargill. KFC is the largest fast-food chain in China. Restaurant company Yum China owns or franchises all branches in the country.

The U.S. chicken market should expect positive growth in 2020 despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, reveals the latest Quarterly report from cooperative bank CoBank.In the first two months of 2020, chicken production grew 7.7%. At the time, the industry was largely optimistic given expectations that renewed exports to China would be happening soon. This growth exceeded expectations and CoBank now predicts the 2020 chicken supply to increase by 3-4%, up from the original estimates of 2-3%. In March, the spread of COVID-19 shifted the focus to domestic markets. With most governing bodies advising people to stay at home, consumers have turned to at-home dining. Chicken sales have grown exponentially as a result, with the price of chicken breasts has increased at a rate higher than expected.

For the past few weeks, Israel has been dealing with a nationwide shortage of eggs. Many supermarkets around the country are completely running out of egg cartons. The demand for eggs increased more than ever as the COVID-19 lockdown caused panic buying and additional consumption was triggered by the Passover, a popular Jewish holiday. Israel allowed importing eggs from the regular countries, which are Italy, Spain, Portugal, and one-fourth of the amount would come from a newly approved country, Ukraine. The Palestinian Authorities (PA) proposed to export eggs to Israel for Passover, but the proposal was rejected due to lack of proper veterinary supervision.

Egg prices triple in 3 weeks amid coronavirus panic shopping. According to Nielsen (a world leader in consumer measurement), egg sales soared 86% last week compared with the year-ago period. In the four weeks ending March 21, egg sales jumped 29% compared with the same period i 2019. Wholesale prices for a dozen Midwest large eggs, the benchmark for the egg industry, surged to a record $3.09, up from $1.03 at the beginning of the month.

In 2017, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed the Antibiotic Use in Food Animals Ordinance (Ordinance) to address one of the most pressing public health issues today - antibiotic resistance. Yet there is no federal mandate for the livestock industry to track the use of medically important antibiotics. San Francisco's Ordinance is the first local law of its kind in the United States to increase transparency about how antibiotics are used in the livestock industry. Under the Ordinance, chain grocers operating in San Francisco (defined as grocers with 25 or more stores anywhere) must report to the San Francisco Department of the Environment about the antibiotic use policies and practices of the producers of the raw meat and poultry they sell. This is the first report under the Ordinance and provides information about meat and poultry sold in San Francisco in calendar year 2018.

On March 12, 2020, South Africa announced that the applied most favoured nation duties (MFN) onimports of bone-in chicken will be raised from 37 percent to 62 percent, and from 12 percent to 42 percent for boneless portions. The announcement comes more than one year after the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa initiated its investigation in November 2018 at the request of the South African Poultry Association. The increases on the duties are effective as of March 13, 2020.

EU-27+UK chicken meat production in 2020 is now forecast to increase by 1.1 percent from 2019. This increase follows 1.6 percent growth in 2019, driven by increased domestic EU-28 consumption and higher than anticipated exports. The EU-28 chicken meat production increase in 2019 was also notably driven by a 4 percent production increase in Poland which is now the leading chicken meat producing country in the European Union. However, FAS Warsaw estimates that Polish chicken production growth will slow to 1.5 percent in 2020 because of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) outbreaks in late December 2019. Until February 12, 2020, there were 18 confirmed HPAI outbreaks in domestic Polish poultry (mainly turkey farms) and one case in wild birds.

Various photos posted on social media show poultry meat tainted with a putrid, green stain in poultry meat bought from different supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons). It is unclear whether the birds all come from the same supplier and supermarkets have now opened an investigation into the cause of this pathology. Deep pectoral myopathy (DPM) is a degenerative muscle disease of poultry commonly referred to as green muscle disease. Green muscle disease is a hidden problem in today’s large broiler chickens that is not detected until these birds are deboned at the processing plant.

In marketing year (MY) 2020, the chicken meat production forecast is 3.7 million metric tons (MT). The MY 2019 chicken meat production forecast remains 3.6 million MT. According to Mexico’s National Union of Poultry Producers (UNA), domestic poultry production has grown 3 percent during 2019 and is expected to grow at a similar pace through 2020. Feed represents an estimated 68 percent of production costs for poultry producers and they consume about 51 percent of total national feed production, making Mexico’s chicken meat production highly dependent on the stability of grain and feed prices.

More than three fourths of countries do not use any antibiotics for animal growth promotion, according to OIE findings. The report includes information on veterinary antibiotic use submitted by 153 OIE members in 2018. 118 out of 153 (77%) did not use any antimicrobial agents for growth promotion in animals in their countries as of 2018, either with or without legislation or regulations.

A new bill has been introduced in Arizona that would phase out the use of cages in egg production or eggs sold from hens raised in cages. If passed, Arizona will be joining states like California, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Michigan, which have all passed cage-free egg laws. The proposed legislation would require egg producers to start giving hens more space by the end of this year. From December 31, 2020, industrial egg farms would not be allowed to confine hens to any area smaller than one square foot per hen.

France has pledged to outlaw the practice of culling unwanted male chicks by the end of 2021, as part of animal welfare reforms. About seven billion male chicks are killed around the world each year, usually in shredding machines or by gas. The 2021 ban will make France one of the first countries to outlaw the practice of culling male chicks. Germany, where 45 million male chicks are macerated each year, outlawed it too, but a top administrative court ruled in June that the slaughter could continue until a method was found to determine the sex of an embryo in the egg.

Cholesterol is a common nutrient in the human diet and eggs are a major source of dietary cholesterol. People who eat 300 milligrams of dietary cholesterol per day, have a higher risk of both heart disease and early death compared with those who eat fewer eggs, new study published in the medical journal JAMA finds. Eggs, specially the yolk, are a major source of dietary cholesterol, a single large egg contains about 186 milligrams of cholesterol.

Ukraine has entered the top five of the world’s poultry exporters. Brazil, the EU and Thailand are ahead of Ukraine. EU issued import permits for 58,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat as part of the first distribution of the tariff quota (TRQ) for 2020. Almost the entire quota was issued for duty-free supplies. Ukraine as of January 10, 2019 and since the beginning of the 2019/2020 marketing year (MY, July-June) has exported 32.08 million tonnes of grain, which is 7.8 million tonnes more than for the same period of the last marketing year.