Poultry factory ‘bottlenecks’ leading to production cuts

Labour challenges this year are proving more disruptive than the initial shock of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, a leading poultry producer has said.

Patrick Hook, a director at PD Hook, one of the UK’s largest independent meat chicken hatchery businesses, says his firm has cut back production by about 10% because of unprecedented staff shortages in recent months.

The company, based in Bampton, Oxfordshire, operates hatcheries as well as broiler and turkey farms across the UK.

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Defra figures suggest that the wider poultry industry is in the same position. For the first six months of this year, broiler chick placings were up by a total of 23.6 million, or 4%, compared with the same period last year.

But in July and August that trend reversed, with a drop totalling eight million over the two months, a 4% decline.

Mr Hook told the Poultry.Network conference that the Brexit settlement, as well as Covid-19, had caused “millions” of foreign workers to leave the UK, and recruiting from overseas had become more difficult.

Factory vacancies

“In the spring of this year, the cracks started to appear within the industry,” he said. “The shortfalls in the factories were real, and all of our key customers were telling us they had up to 500 vacancies.

“Between January and May were probably the busiest months that our business has ever seen. We had record chick placings, record processing, and the industry was flat out.

“But from June, we’ve almost undone all of the busy period that we had. Covid was extremely challenging, but this latest situation has been extremely difficult because it’s going on and on, and we don’t seem to be reaching the end.”

Staff numbers have been cut by about 10% and Mr Hook said further reductions could not be ruled out if labour issues were not resolved.

“There’s empty shelves [in supermarkets] and imports coming in because we cannot meet the demand. The frustration for us is that, agriculturally, we can hatch, grow and produce chicken, but there’s just huge bottlenecks in the factories.”