US poultry production set to rise 3%

Poultry production in the US – already at an all-time high – is set to increase further into the 2020s as new processing plants stretching from Texas to Tennessee come on stream.

Sanderson Farms estimates the industry’s production will increase 3% annually from 2019 through to 2021. It has added 7 plants since 1993, most recently breaking ground in eastern Texas.

Fuelling growth

Costco’s $300m plant in Nebraska will produce almost 100m chicken a year when it opens in April 2019, supplying around a 3^rd of its stores with 2 million chickens a week. And Tyson Foods is opening a new plant in western Tennessee next year.
This will help fuel growing American consumption levels. Americans have been eating more chicken that any other meat for 2 decades but demand has really spiralled in recent years. Recent US Department of Agriculture figures expect per capita consumption levels to a record 42kg/capita/year – up 15% in such 6 years.

The boom times for the industry can be seen in yesterday’s latest quarterly results from one of the world’s largest food companies Tyson Foods, which delivered record quarter growth, driven by its prepared foods.
Its first quarter results posted a net income of $1.631bn or $4.40 a share in the 3 months to the end of December – up from $594m in the year earlier period. Tyson’s net revenue rose 11.4% to $10.23 billion, surprising analysts which had expected a figure just below $10bn.

According to Bloomberg, analysts predict quarterly earnings gain later this month for other major US poultry companies Pilgrim’s Pride Corp and Sanderson Farms.