Italy's poultry industry excels over unprecedented times.
Caio Alves
Published Nov 23, 2020
The Italian poultry industry proved itself resilient in the Q1 even with COVID-19 taking its toll on the markets. Built on a positive last year, Italy made a good balance due to equally distributing labor safety and ensuring production was put in course. Referring to last year, sales of poultry meat in Italy registered a slight increase of 0.8%, accounting for 1.3 million metric tons (mt). Chicken meat represented 948,000 mt at +1.5% average, while those of turkey meat accounted for 301,000 mt, keeping a steady pace.
The country that was extremely affected by the spread of the coronavirus has managed to avoid outbreaks in processing plants, allowing the industry to return to normal and avoid expensive shutdowns, as other meat markets had gone through.
The Italian poultry producers association said in a note: “To date, no COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported in the production plants of our members, unlike what has happened in the U.S. and the rest of Europe. What is happening abroad does not in any way reflect what is happening in Italy or in our companies.”
Worth to mention that the swift changing on consumption habits are expected to offset the outflow of products in the HORECA channels, as per hotel, restaurant and food catering, of which may see the value of sales to the end of year to decline by 40%. Producers do expect the increasing demand from retail will fill the blank, resulting in a total agrifood sales by value to be only 10% lower this year than the last one, according to such estimates.
Per capita poultry meat consumption in 2019 reached 20.45 kg average, while the trend for higher-value production witnessed in previous years continued into 2019. The country’s poultry meat exports were also higher.
Only in the Q1 of this year, sales of poultry meat through supermarket chains rose 8.9%. By late April, Unaltalia reported that demand had become erratic and that by June this year, prices for poultry meat were 21% lower than 12 months earlier. Still companies didn’t pass the cost on to consumers or growers.
While Italy may be ahead of some countries in relaxing COVID-19 restrictions and not experiencing an upswing in COVID-19 cases of the scale being seen by some of its neighbors, the sector is not without ongoing concerns.
On top of that the Association expressed his concerns that the industry may become vulnerable to foreign takeovers, and reinforced that an encompassing process from agricultural producers and the supermarket chains to share value among the country’s various food supply participants is deemed, in order to help respond to the changing consumer demand.
Frozen turkey and chicken meat supplies retracted due to the instability pushing export trends down.
The country that was extremely affected by the spread of the coronavirus has managed to avoid outbreaks in processing plants, allowing the industry to return to normal and avoid expensive shutdowns, as other meat markets had gone through.
The Italian poultry producers association said in a note: “To date, no COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported in the production plants of our members, unlike what has happened in the U.S. and the rest of Europe. What is happening abroad does not in any way reflect what is happening in Italy or in our companies.”
Worth to mention that the swift changing on consumption habits are expected to offset the outflow of products in the HORECA channels, as per hotel, restaurant and food catering, of which may see the value of sales to the end of year to decline by 40%. Producers do expect the increasing demand from retail will fill the blank, resulting in a total agrifood sales by value to be only 10% lower this year than the last one, according to such estimates.
Per capita poultry meat consumption in 2019 reached 20.45 kg average, while the trend for higher-value production witnessed in previous years continued into 2019. The country’s poultry meat exports were also higher.
Only in the Q1 of this year, sales of poultry meat through supermarket chains rose 8.9%. By late April, Unaltalia reported that demand had become erratic and that by June this year, prices for poultry meat were 21% lower than 12 months earlier. Still companies didn’t pass the cost on to consumers or growers.
While Italy may be ahead of some countries in relaxing COVID-19 restrictions and not experiencing an upswing in COVID-19 cases of the scale being seen by some of its neighbors, the sector is not without ongoing concerns.
On top of that the Association expressed his concerns that the industry may become vulnerable to foreign takeovers, and reinforced that an encompassing process from agricultural producers and the supermarket chains to share value among the country’s various food supply participants is deemed, in order to help respond to the changing consumer demand.
Frozen turkey and chicken meat supplies retracted due to the instability pushing export trends down.
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