20 million chicks a week are no longer placed in the EU

Published Jun 22, 2020

Tridge summary

Containment measures have ended all out-of-home consumption, which accounts for between 20 and 40% of production depending on the Member State and, for some species, approximately 100%. "Small species" such as duck, pigeon, quail, rabbit, guinea fowl, or goose cannot be sold easily or at all through retail distribution channels due to the notable differences in their respective supply chains.

Original content

At the same time, each year hundreds of thousands of tonnes of poultry meat are imported into the EU from third countries (mainly from Brazil, Thailand and Ukraine - as well as thousands of tonnes of eggs from Ukraine or the United States). Most of these meats are intended for consumption away from home and therefore cannot be marketed now. As expected, this has resulted in an oversupply situation as cold rooms across Europe have reached full capacity and storage costs continue to rise as the crisis worsens. More than EUR 100 million has already been spent across Europe! In parallel, there has been an alarming 12% decrease in prices in the last seven weeks, which has put even more pressure on European producers. If this dynamic continues, many farmers will be forced to abandon their activity. This will have a ripple effect that will result in the loss of thousands of jobs in rural areas when all forecasts indicate that we are heading into a long recession. End consumers should ...

Source: Agrodigital