Americans expected to eat more chicken
Consumption of chicken is expected to rise to 40.5kg per capita in 2007, up from 39.9 kg last year.
According to the USDA, the industry produced 16,238 billion kg of ready-to-eat chicken in 2006, up 2.3% from the year before.
Tyson reported a loss of US$196 million in fiscal 2006, but expects a profitable first quarter, said Chief Executive Officer, Richard Bond. Susan Watkins, associate professor in poultry science at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said the consolidation in the poultry [referring to the Pilgrim’s Pride Corp takeover last month of rival, Gold Kist Inc.] industry won’t affect production.
“It’s going to be business as usual for chicken processing,” Watkins said. “Bigger corporations have more elasticity in meeting market demands. So the bigger you are, the more flexible you are. If we have big companies doing a good job of marketing the products, then the producers are going to continue to be a valued part of the process.”
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