UK: Poultry sector supply chains need to be fit for the future

Supply chain expert and Herefordshire broiler producer, Professor Louise Manning, said the sector had opportunities to strengthen supply chains but that the government also needed to have an appropriate food risk rather than food security strategy.

Speaking at the National Farmers’ Union poultry debate, Manning, professor of sustainable agri-food systems at the University of Lincoln, said “green finance” was coming farmers’ way from the banking sector, while at the same time the industry was under pressure to keep food prices low.

“I would argue that the stability we have had for the past 20 years is the aberration. If you look at any of the metrics, low interest rates constantly for a period of time is not what usually happens. So, we are in a highly unpredictable world and it will continue. But no-one would be a farmer if they did not have a risk appetite, but sometimes I challenge farmers as to whether their risk appetite is a little too much and they might want to rein it back,” she added.

Agility and resilience

Manning added the industry had spent years becoming leaner, taking costs and people out of the system, but this approach did not work when there were shocks and squeezes to the supply chain, adding that farmers needed to be agile.

She defined resilience as “bouncing without breaking” as a coping strategy, stressing that farmers needed to bounce forwards to succeed.

James Mottershead, NFU poultry board chair, said the sector was at a pivotal moment having had to deal with huge increases in costs of production, shortages of eggs on retail shelves and a lack of confidence to invest, with some producers leaving the sector.

“A supply chain in jeopardy in both the egg and broiler sectors with the retailers and government not realising the true extent of the challenges presently being felt by us all on farm. We have seen interest rates go up to levels that many of us have not had to run a business through. And, we have had 2 years of the worst outbreaks of avian influenza, resulting in challenges both on farm and further afield with trade barriers, restrictions on the movement of birds into and out of disease control zones, and a system overwhelmed.

“In the egg sector, we have seen empty shelves and eggs being rationed as egg shortage continued to play out as a direct result of mounting losses leading egg producers to cancel pullet orders and leave their sheds empty – something that we all warned would happen,” he added.

Fairness

The British Poultry Council warned recently: “We need to get into the core of fairness; we need to explore it from all dimensions. From commercial fairness to resource efficiency to environmental management, what is being referred to as “artificially low prices” are symbolic of a far greater problem. We need to have a long overdue conversation about the true cost of a sustainable food system – one that incorporates fairness, security, livelihoods and overall supply chain resilience.”