French poultry farmers, weakened by bird flu and high production costs, were worried this Wednesday, September 7, to see how imports of chickens, sold at more competitive prices, continued to increase.
France demoted to fourth place in Europe
“France, the 2nd poultry producing country in the European Union in 2021, should drop to 4th place with a reduced supply”, “9.7% less in 2022”, a year marked by the highly pathogenic, according to the poultry meat interprofessional, Anvol.
In 2022, 20 million birds were slaughtered due to avian flu, including 12 million meat birds, that is, a loss of “500 million euros” in the turnover of the sector, stressed Jean-Michel Schaeffer, president of Anvol.
The interprofession forecasts a 30% drop in the production of roast ducks, 18.7% of guinea fowl, 17.7% of turkeys and 3.3% of chickens.
One of every two imported chickens
At the same time, Anvol fears that the share of chicken imports will continue to rise. In the first five months of 2022, 49.6% of the chicken consumed in France was imported, mainly from Poland and Belgium, up from 25% in the early 2000s.
“The sector is trapped by the opening of the borders to Ukrainian chickens,” estimates Gilles Huttepain, vice president of Anvol, recalling that the EU, from which around 14% of the birds consumed comes from Ukraine, has suspended customs of June 24. tariffs for chickens from Ukraine.
Anvol believes that this decision benefits a single company, the Ukrainian group MHP, “which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and whose headquarters have been domiciled in Cyprus since the beginning of the war,” details Gilles Huttepain.
rising costs
The sector is facing “an unprecedented increase in production costs, which has reached +45%-+50% in two years”, he underlines again.
The interprofessional in particular noted an 80% increase in the cost of feeding a standard chicken between August 2020 and August 2022, while feed represents more than 60% of the cost of poultry production.
Consequence of these increases: the price of chicken meat leaving the slaughterhouse, for example for the food industry, increased between “30 and 35% between January 2020 and July 2022”, explains Gilles Huttepain.
Anvol foresees a further increase, of the order of “5 to 7%”, in the prices of chicken meat in France, due in particular to the increase in energy prices, if the cost of animal feed does not return.
Source: BFM TV
