World meat industry news

There is probably not a single national cuisine where chicken has not been noted. Russian is no exception. Let us recall, for example, Pozharsky cutlets, kurniki in their widest range, soup made from chicken giblets, fish soup from a rooster ... You can’t list everything! Our contemporaries do not lag behind in their "chicken" fantasies from their ancestors. As if not noticing that in recent years, this kind of "omnipresence" of chicken meat has become somewhat ... obsessive.

Bird here, bird there...

Finding a boiled sausage without a chicken component is now very problematic. Chicken meat is actively demanded in the fast food market. Many manufacturers of frozen semi-finished products have reoriented to the production of chicken products ...

Ten years ago, meat market experts almost unanimously repeated: "With the full supply of the domestic market, chicken may well act as a substitute for pork and beef." And so it happened. The replacement factor is not only in the full security of the market, but also in the affordability of chicken meat. Even when the price of chicken in the retail market increased noticeably, it still remained below the cost of pork, and especially beef, which had become almost an elite product.

In addition, the Russian bird has long been an export product. Exactly five years ago, the country for the first time reached full self-sufficiency in chicken meat. At the same time, massive export deliveries began, which prevented the crisis of overproduction in the poultry industry.

Last year alone, poultry meat exports grew by 16% in so-called physical terms and by 51% in monetary terms. The main buyer was, as before, China. 139,000 tons of chicken meat were sent to China, which is almost 40% of the total export volume of our poultry meat. The second buyer was Saudi Arabia, which increased purchases by almost 60%. In third place is Kazakhstan. Finally, shipments to the UAE more than tripled, and shipments to Belarus, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Ghana and Angola doubled.

A small clarification: not only chicken meat is exported. Our turkey producers are increasing their presence in the foreign market. But compared to chicken, it is still quite modest - somewhere between 5 - 7% in the total "poultry" supply.

And suddenly - stop! A month ago, meat processing enterprises for the first time announced that they did not have enough chicken carcasses for the production of products put on stream. For example, all the same mentioned sausages. And some sausage makers hinted at the "overdue need" to switch "from chicken to pork."

At the same time, according to the assurances of the Russian Union of Poultry Breeders (Rosptitsesoyuz), domestic poultry farms are working without slowing down, and the production of poultry meat in the country this year can increase from last year's 5.3 million tons by at least another 80-100 thousand. Well, isn't it a paradox?

For the price of a pig

Every paradox has an explanation. The fact is that the price of a broiler carcass in the wholesale sector for the first time in the last ten years caught up with the price of a half carcass of pork. And in some cases, even surpassed it. So, in May, the cost of chicken meat from producers reached 185 - 190 rubles per kilogram - 30% higher compared to May last year.

In the retail sector, judging by the data of our Petrostat, the cost of carcasses since the beginning of the year, although not by much, has even decreased: in the first four months it has moved down by 8%, and in April a kilogram of "whole" chicken pulled an average of 162 rubles. But in May, the carcass immediately jumped to 172 rubles per kilo.

As for chicken cuts - breasts, thighs, wings and other "components" - their price has been slowly going up since the very beginning of the year. So, the cost of a fillet (breast) crept up to 260 - 270 rubles per kilo, thighs - to 230 - 250 rubles. But the wings flew to the cost of the carcass.

Retail prices will not be able to hold their positions for a long time, experts insist. At the same time, paying attention to the fact that - quote: "For most Russian households, the cost of chicken meat is of great importance. After all, every average Russian eats 36 kilograms of chicken per year. This is 45% of all meat consumed.”

Despite the fact that domestic poultry farms do not slow down, the industry still stumbles over the problems that the current situation has presented to it. One of the leaders in the production of poultry meat has always been the border Belgorod region. But today, due to well-known circumstances, local poultry complexes are forced to change the logistics system, adjust feed delivery schedules, and the operating hours of the enterprises themselves.

Another trouble: since the beginning of the year, outbreaks of chicken flu have been recorded in different regions of the country. They did not bring serious damage to the industry directly, but some poultry farms were quarantined.

There are also what experts call “hidden production problems”. So, a couple of months ago, a Dutch manufacturer of equipment for cutting, boning and processing poultry stopped its work in Russia. And up to 70% of Russian enterprises specializing in the production of broilers were technologically dependent on it. And today companies are looking for analogues both abroad and with our machine tool builders.

Meanwhile, sausage producers asked the Ministry of Agriculture to impose restrictions on the export of chicken meat in order to stabilize prices in the domestic market. The Ministry of Agriculture seems to have ignored the sausage makers' appeal. But "Rosptitsesoyuz" did not like it very much. “We have been fighting for access to foreign markets for so long that it would be reckless to destroy the established export routes overnight,” its representatives said. “On the contrary, exports need to be developed. Especially now.”

As for the current difficulties, they, according to Rosptitsesoyuz, are temporary. “Besides,” said Galina Bobyleva, general director of the country’s main poultry association, “prices for chicken meat have always risen in the summer. As well as chicken eggs before Easter.

To find confirmation of these words, we were not too lazy to get into the archives of Petrostat. And they did find it! Indeed, chicken prices almost always went up during the summer months. By the way, exactly a year ago, chicken carcasses in retail trade in St. Petersburg cost 187 rubles per kg. And chicken legs - 221 rubles / kg.

Somehow, the most difficult crisis in the domestic poultry industry, which almost completely destroyed the industry in the 1990s, has already been forgotten. And “Bush's legs” ossified from freezing and long-distance flights, if they are remembered, then like a terrible dream ... The frail chicken of the Soviet era has also gone into oblivion - with a thin skin of a pale color, with a bluish tint.

Laughed at the cyanotic chickens from the heart! And jokes were told. But what fragrant broths of them were ... Not a single current broiler will give out such an aroma. But he expelled our cyanotic bird, such a market turn turned out.

Broilers are chickens exclusively for meat. In fact, these are hybrids obtained by crossing individuals of meat breeds or already well-established crosses. The main feature of broilers is their "precocity". In a month and a half, a bird can gain weight from 2 to 2.5 kilograms.

Chicken broilers first appeared in the United States in the 1880s. The production of meat cross-country chickens reached serious development only in the middle of the 20th century. In the Soviet Union, broilers were first grown in Crimea at a state farm called Krasny. It is known that in the fall of 1964, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev himself granted him an inspection. The design capacity of the state-owned poultry farm promised to surprise with a "universal" record: three million heads of "early" broilers.

But from the plans to their implementation there was a huge gap. In it, these plans rested ... Growing broilers at that time turned out to be unprofitable. The Soviet poultry industry headed for "egg production" - for the construction of giant egg poultry farms. And where there is a laying hen, there will be eggs, and chickens, and chicken meat. If you want - young (just in the form of those very bluish carcasses), if you want - older (laying hens that have spent their lives, as well as roosters, went for meat).

Truly broiler poultry farming in Russia began to develop only from the beginning of the 2000s. And today, about a hundred (out of 420) large poultry farms specialize in the production of chicken meat. The fifth line in the top 10 is occupied by the Severnaya poultry farm from the Leningrad Region.

The technology for the production of broilers in poultry farms is by and large the same. The difference can only be in the diet. In any case, do not chase too well-fed carcass. Better two, but thin, than one chubby chicken "boar". Do not forget: rumors about hormonal feeding of a bird for the sake of weight are not always just rumors.