World meat industry news

The Governor of the Moscow Region Andrey Vorobyov, at a meeting with agricultural producers that took place the other day in Kashira, spoke about a new breeding breeder of meat breeds of chickens, unique for the region, opened in the Orekhovo-Zuevsky District. Until recently, poultry farms were forced to buy hatching eggs in Western countries, but soon their needs for breeding material will be completely covered by a reproducer near Moscow.

Now, more than ever, the question has become relevant: what comes first: the chicken or the egg? There are hundreds of poultry processing enterprises in the Moscow region. But before neatly packed chicken carcasses, legs or breasts hit the shelves, the bird needs to be grown. As you know, a chicken grows from a chicken, and a chicken hatches from an egg.

And hatching eggs are now a matter of concern for farmers.

“In the past, farmers bought breeding eggs from Europe and the USA,” explains Iraida Simbireva, head of the farm from Shakhovskaya. - But with the growth of currencies, their cost has become simply unbearable. Despite the fact that about 80% of all Russian broiler chickens, those that are grown for meat, hatch from imported eggs.

Expensiveness is one thing. But now the West is announcing more and more sanctions on Russia, prohibiting the import of one or the other goods into the country. So far, breeding eggs from Europe have not been included in the sanctions list, but the situation may change at any time. Already now there are difficulties with deliveries.

Of course, in Russia there are manufacturers of hatching eggs, they are located just in the suburbs. But production volumes still barely cover 20% of the needs of local poultry farmers.

One of these industries is the farm of the winner of the Our Podmoskovye Governor's Award, Iraida Simbireva.

“We produce about a million breeding eggs a year,” the farmer says. – But we don’t even sell the eggs themselves, but the day-old chicks already hatched from them. Our clients are small farms, those whom I personally know and with whom I have been cooperating for a long time. Most manufacturers, especially large ones, buy biomaterial from Europe.

However, very soon the situation may move forward. Last autumn, Elinar-Broiler, a poultry farm near Moscow that produces chicken products under the First Freshness brand, launched a new breeding poultry reproducer in Orekhovo-Zuyevo. This production site will produce hatching eggs for broiler production.

- The production of hatching eggs in "Elinar-Broiler" was carried out on 2 loudspeakers and covered only 52% of our needs. The remaining 48% had to be purchased abroad, - says Dmitry Vlasenko, General Director of Elinar-Broiler Poultry Farm LLC. – But in view of the bad epizootic situation abroad caused by the bird flu epidemic, agricultural producers began to have problems with supplies.

At the same time, the government launched a program to stimulate its own production of hatching eggs. Thanks to these measures of state support, the Elinar group of companies decided to invest 680 million rubles. in the creation of a new breeding reproducer.

- The design capacity of the new production, which we will reach in November 2022, is 42 million breeding eggs per year, - says Dmitry Vlasenko. – This will not only completely cover our needs, but will also provide an opportunity to offer a high-quality breeding product to other agricultural producers.

Thus, the enterprise will reliably protect itself both from possible sanctions and from threats of the introduction of diseases, such as the bird flu virus.

– Yes, at the moment the volume of imports of hatching eggs is about 17% of the total Russian demand, – emphasizes Dmitry Vlasenko. – To achieve full self-sufficiency, impressive investments are needed. The payback period for such projects is quite long. But thanks to state support, focusing on the long term, the poultry industry will fully provide itself with hatching eggs.

By the way, the appearance of a pedigree reproducer in Orekhovo-Zuyevo created 100 new jobs in the municipality.

Sergey Kerselyan, deputy of the Moscow Regional Duma:

– Poultry farms are largely dependent on imported breeding eggs. As a result, the price of eggs has risen in recent years. It is possible to cope with the situation through complete import substitution, so that our enterprises do not depend on supplies. And as we can see, the Moscow region has the necessary capacities to launch import-substituting production. And this, in turn, will ensure the food security of the region.