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From innovations in precision production to the consumption of alternative proteins, these are topics that will alter the industry for the next five years

It would seem difficult, but even in a well-developed industry, such as poultry, it is still feasible to take steps to improve. To do this, it is necessary to understand the market trends in each region.

“There is a clear need to develop high-quality poultry products to meet the demand of specific markets, even under challenging conditions,” said Dr. Ruud Eits, Trouw Nutrition’s global poultry director, in an interview. “It is in these kinds of things that we must innovate.”

Precision Nutrition and Production

There are new ways of looking at nutrition that are innovative, such as split feeding  , in which instead of giving a single diet throughout the day to the layers or breeders, one diet is administered in the morning and a different one in the morning. afternoon or evening, which differ in energy, amino acids and phosphorus.

In the essence of precision nutrition is knowing the particular nutritional needs of birds in certain phases of production, as well as knowing very well the raw materials with which the feed is manufactured. These two aspects cross information. That is, the hen’s physiology is different in the morning, afternoon or evening, as well as its needs. “It’s about not targeting averages, but what is required in each phase,” Eits said.

Relatively small changes in nutrition pay themselves more than financially and performance-wise, plus there is less nitrogen removal from the environment, according to Eits.

This type of precision nutrition fits perfectly with the concept of precision production, which includes different sensors and production measurements. Digital monitoring allows us to obtain more data, which must be tracked. With these measurements we see how production performs in real time, although we are just in the early days of this technology.

Another element that fits into this concept is the use of models to see how birds perform, how they will respond to diets under different conditions. “We can use all the research information and summarize it into models for application in production,” Eits added. In this way, tailor-made solutions are developed for the producer. For this, the price of meat must be taken into account, as well as the cost of raw materials

NIR technology

NIR (Near Infrared Spectroscopy) technology has traditionally been used in the evaluation of raw materials. “We can use it for other things, for example, to evaluate the structure of balanced food and thus be able to positively influence the development of the gizzard,” he said. Today, this technology has found wider uses within poultry.

The NIR can also be used in the scanning of fertile eggs to see their development – especially in the early stages – and to know if there will be any problems later. “This way, you can intervene early instead of waiting until it’s too late.”

NIR technology still has untapped possibilities that we can use. For example, the use of mobile scanners – instead of fixed ones – that are already used for rapid analysis. Once the raw materials are scanned, the data is sent through an application where the result can be viewed.

Mycotoxins

Another important aspect is the control of mycotoxins. “We are progressing more and more in doing rapid testing for mycotoxins, so instead of going to a lab and spending more expensive testing, rapid testing has become more and more precise and accurate.” This is an area that is being worked on, as it is a substantial risk for the producer.

The obvious: alternative meats

Alternative meats are going to impact our industry, although no one knows how fast or how far. They are still a very small part of the market, but it is growing and the technology is improving. “We should primarily look at consumers who are well informed, young consumers who can adopt it faster than we think,” Eits said. We must not be like ostriches.

There are large companies that have made investments or that have partnered with others, such as fast food. In general, “it is a question of image, because if we go more to the facts, they still have a long way to go until it is a better option than animal protein. We are completely convinced that the animal protein sector is very efficient and healthier, as well as providing nutrients and flavor ”.

Something interesting is that the people who switch to this type of alternative meat are those who consume chicken, more than those who consume beef or pork. “This is a bit contradictory, since they are going against meat that is more efficient,” according to Eits.

Climate change

In poultry production, “we have a great story to tell, even more so than other animal proteins, because we have made tremendous improvements in efficiency.” If you want to be efficient and avoid the production of carbon dioxide, chicken meat has the best record.

“We don’t tell people our story well enough, even young people. We must speak of real events, not emotions, “he added.

Source: http://www.industriaavicola.net

Poultry producers expect to be dealing with the fallout of COVID-19 for at least another six months, according to a new survey.

In the third quarter of 2020, a majority of respondents to the WATT/Rennier Poultry Confidence Index said they expect COVID-19 to impact their operations until Spring 2021 or the end of 2021.

As part of the quarterly survey, WATT Global Media is asking additional questions about the state of the poultry industry as well as emerging trends, technologies and challenges. This blog post reflects the results of the supplemental questions included in the third quarter survey conducted in August 2020. The next installment of Dr. Greg Rennier’s column reflecting the results of this survey will be published in the October issue of WATT PoultryUSA.

COVID-19 outbreak continues

Nearly six months after the outbreak began in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to define daily life. After temporary lockdowns, states and cities re-opened during the summer but new infections continue to appear.

Some hallmarks of American life are returning, but with severe restrictions. With the new school year beginning in late August and early September, some students are returning to class while others stay home. How long in-person classes will continue remains in question as students contract the virus and some schools and universities decide to suspend in-person learning. Organized sports are returning without fans or with a strictly limited number of fans. Restaurants and bars are reopening, but with attendance limits and mandatory mask wearing orders in effect.  

There is some progress made on vaccines and treatments for the novel coronavirus, but it appears the pandemic is far from over in both the U.S. and abroad.

We asked, “Has your processing, hatchery, live haul, feed mill or field vaccination operations done any of the following in response to COVID-19? (Please check all that apply)” 

• 90% responded, “Required additional personal protective equipment for workers.”
• 81% responded, “Added additional social distancing practice by staggering breaks and moving workers outside for breaks.”
• 81% responded, “Added additional written messaging (posters, message boards, etc.) about COVID prevention.”
• 80% responded, “Elevated sanitation practices in and around the plant.”
• 63% responded, “Added additional worker training programs for COVID-19 prevention.”
• 56% responded, “Added barriers between workers on processing lines.”
• 19% responded, “Slowed line speeds.”

We asked, “How has COVID-19 affected your ability to staff your operation?”

• 64% responded, “Staffing my operation is more challenging than it was before March 2020.
• 33% responded, “My staffing levels are the same as before March 2020.”
• 3% responded, “Staffing my operation is less challenging than it was before March 2020.”

We asked, “How long do you expect COVID-19 to impact your operations?”

• 30% responded, “Until the end of 2021.”
• 25% responded, “Until the end of spring 2021.”
• 16% responded, “Until the end of 2020.”
• 9% responded, “Until the end of winter 2020.”
• 8% responded, “COVID-19 is not significantly affecting my business.”
• 5% responded, “Two or more years from now.”
• 4% responded, “Forever.”
• 2% responded, “Until the end of fall 2020.”

View our continuing coverage of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: http://www.wattagnet.com

Some positive things have emerged amid the pandemic uncertainty that afflicts us. Let’s not lose the habit of seeing “the glass is half full” with these sips

Despite the international crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the poultry industry could see some opportunities. Those include:

1. Turn to virtuality

The need to limit physical interaction as much as possible, meetings and even the crowds of our internal and external events presents us with the challenge of really reinforcing the virtual tools of communication, promotion and sale. The issue goes beyond technological support; they are the people with specific responsibilities. Needed are adequate response times and innovation in the use of tools.

2. Alternative channels

Home delivery service in the distribution of chicken meat and eggs for the final buyers — which was being implemented in an incipient way within the poultry companies — now has the key moment to prove its worth and grow. The old fixed telephone lines must be recovered to reduce pressure on the virtual network.

3. Telecommuting

Many organizations, including some poultry businesses, are reluctant to implement alternative mechanisms such as telecommuting (working remotely) in some of their processes. The demands of the current contingency will give each company many future inputs in this regard.

4. Time to promote poultry products

Panic buying reinforces the great positioning of eggs and chicken in consumer minds as staples, even as ingredients for recipes that seek to boost the immune system (which is true). In supermarkets, both would disappear in minutes, with some cuts being picked up faster than others (for example, chicken breasts, which are included in many recipes and have been for a long time).

5. Corporate solidarity

It does not hurt to devise some relief and special service options for the HoReCa channel that, as part of the tourism and services sector, is having a very bad time and is one of the industry’s best clients. But, in addition to that, it is worth noting that we can contribute with our experience in biosecurity. Some poultry farmers in Spain have understood this and have made their technical staff and equipment available to the health authorities at no cost for tasks such as spraying agents or specific cleaning of public areas, if applicable. 

6. More formalization and associativity

Finally, this grave crisis demands that we unite more than ever as an industry in each country and reinforce the need to formalize agribusiness increasingly. One of the ideal conjunctures for this is in the announced general reliefs that each government is devising to avoid an economic debacle and the protection of employment. Preference criteria for the organized and compliant entrepreneur must be requested from the authorities, as well as the channelling of aid with the assistance of the already constituted associations.

 Source: http://www.wattagnet.com

Now that vaccination against COVID-19 seems to be coming soon, in addition to health personnel and the elderly, meat packing workers should be prioritized.

Governments seem stunned at the pandemic, in the sense that after nine months, a myriad of administrative procedures are not yet possible. Government offices in many countries remain closed. I think they have not realized that there are masks, home office and the Cloud, alcoholic gel, transparent acrylic screens to serve the public, social distancing, foot dips, and a host of measures that are already in place in many regions.

They have simply not been adapted. Zero resilience.

However, the meat processing industry, including the poultry processing industry, made a series of immediate changes to protect workers and, above all, not disrupt the supply chain. Workers have been on the front line of meat supply.

That is why the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) has just issued a letter urging U.S. authorities to consider meat packing plant workers as a priority in the COVID-19 vaccination process. This, of course, does not detract from the priority of those who work in the health sector and the elderly in retirement homes.

I would like to emphasize that in these months there have been attempts to blame the poultry industry for their high concentration of personnel and for the fact that there were some disease outbreaks. The industry responded without a word of complaint. Adaptations were immediately made, demonstrating great resilience. And, as the NAMI press release says, “the supply chain remains intact.”

This resilience demonstrated by new equipment and facility adaptations, personal protective equipment, improved ventilation systems, disinfection programs and protocols, a multitude of tests and a titanic training task have kept COVID-19 at bay in meat plants, while figures generally affect virtually all countries.

I welcome the NAMI initiative, which does not only give priority to its workers, real covidian heroes, but implicitly recognizes the work done by the meat and poultry industry.

So you may still be unable to obtain a birth certificate or a passport, but you will be able to eat chicken.

What do you think?

Poultry producers are successfully tackling challenges COVID-19 challenges, but the industry that emerges post-pandemic will be very different to the one we know today

s the poultry industry now in a portal to a different world? It may well be according to Paul Aho, president of consultancy Poultry Perspective, and what lies on the other side of that portal will be a very different world to what producers know today.

The rapid pace being forced by COVID-19 means that changes that, under normal circumstances, may have taken a decade to occur, will now be complete within just a couple of years. COVID-19 is fast-forwarding the industry to 2030.

Speaking at the Virtual PoultryTech Summit, hosted by WATT Global Media, Aho noted that change is taking place at various levels, be it evolving consumer habits, revised working practices or shifting patterns of trade. The poultry industry that will emerge once the COVID-19 pandemic has been brought under more control will, in many cases, be leaner and efficient, and more secure.

Aho continued that a return to any degree of normality is likely to still be some way off and may not emerge until 2022-2023 and, even then, there will still be waves and outbreaks causing significant disruptions caused by the novel coronavirus. Looking longer term, he warned that other diseases, both human and animal, will be more common occurrences.

Transformation within and without

So how is the poultry market adapting and what might it expect one the pandemic is more under control?

Changed consumer behavior can be expected to continue. This year has seen an increase in eating in home and, to some extent, this can be expected to continue even as we enter the new normal.

According to Richard Kottmeyer, managing director of FTI Consultancy, when we do, eventually, return to a degree of normality, many restaurants will simply have disappeared, unable to weather disease control measures.

This will leave the chains and quick service restaurants, and the latter are expected to be the immediate winners due to their take out offering.

A constant and growing concern for consumers will be traceability and this will tend to favor chain restaurants. They are likely win over independents due to their scale. This not only gives them a financial advantage, their size allows them to develop and implement full food traceability programs.

At production level, there is an ever-increasing move to automation, digitalization. Just in time production practices are giving way to just in case, helping to counter the fragility of supply chains that has emerged over recent months.

To further strengthen supply chains, producers are looking to alternative suppliers, and no longer want to put all of their eggs in one basket. Production will be increasingly optimized, and headcounts will be reduced.

Osler Desouzart, COE of OD Consulting, Market Planning & Strategy, noted that the changes that were quickly implemented in the Brazilian poultry industry saved if from plant closures. Now, he continued, everyone is talking about robotics, but there remained a lot of work to do.

Changes are taking place at different rates depending on the scale and location of individual companies. Gordon Butland, director of G&S Agriconsultant Co. Ltd. noted that while large poultry companies have already embraced new technologies, it is now the second-tier companies that are the adopters. Yet, he noted, in much of the world, chicken is still produced by small- or medium-sized companies and these smaller players simply will not have the resources to implement such big changes.  

While COVID is expected to cause disruption for at least another 12 months the chicken industry is expected to continue growing, even if this year is expected to see zero growth. Companies may be looking more to their home markets but global trade is still expected to absorb approximately 12% of production.

Headcounts will be reduced, automation increased and product mix may change, and, as ever consumer demands will increase, but the fast pace of change currently being witnessed in poultry production around the world, should see the poultry sector continuing to satisfy the upward demand for animal protein. Will it have reached where it was forecast to be in 2030? It may well have.

Attend the 2021 Poultry Tech Summit

Join an exclusive international gathering of industry-changing innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs, technology experts, investors and leading poultry producers at the 2021 edition of Poultry Tech Summit on October 31 – November 2 in Atlanta, Georgia.Attendees can expect the same groundbreaking innovation and insightful presentations that made the previous events well-attended with deep dialogue on new prospective solutions and developing technologies.

Cage-free egg production turned into cage confinement for several reasons, including humane ones

My blog last week about traditional egg production and cage-free egg production caused several positive reactions. On that occasion I asked to be informed about whether any organization promoted the benefits of traditional production. And that was the case. I was contacted by Ken Klippen, president of the National Association of Egg Farmers in the United States, who provided me with several interesting concepts.

Subject to a full article later, I summarize here some insights, based on more than 40 years of Klippen’s experience in producing eggs and evidence from researchers. The question is: Why did we stop producing cage-free eggs about 50 years ago?

There are several reasons for this. I will mention only a few. Has anyone thought of the pecking order hens establish? When the population is limited to a few birds, within a cage, the damage caused by pecking and mortality is reduced. In cage-free systems it is very different. It is a matter of observing this between the traditional system and free-range systems.

In cage-free systems, keel bone breakage is higher from collisions with perches. Free hens have more external parasite issues, such as the situation in Europe with red mites. In terms of diseases, there has been a resurgence in infectious coryza in backyard flocks or the presence of spotty liver disease. In addition, access to the outside world makes them prone to other diseases.

And what about product safety? Cage-free eggs may have round worms, in addition to production of more dirty eggs, to the detriment of public health.

Sustainability, greenhouse gas emissions, and cost are all to be mentioned. Is it understood why we are producing with cages?

So, it is not so humane to leave hens loose there, as it is believed. No one in his healthy judgment produces eggs in cages to disturb, to make hens suffer, to oppress a species. It is a matter of profitability, health, ecology, and food production at a fair and affordable price.

What do you think?

Benjamin Ruiz https://www.wattagnet.com/

One thing that this unpredictable pandemic has pointed out clearly is that implementing new technology is now more important than ever. Think of how much more economically devastating the pandemic-associated restrictions would have been without the communication and sensing technologies that have been developed and widely adopted just in the past decade.

We know technology is advancing at a staggering pace, but we also know that, when it comes to new technology, one size doesn’t fit all. For instance, robots and sensors developed for automobile plants can’t just be plugged in and used at poultry facilities and farms. These technologies require modification and further development before they can be implemented economically in poultry operations.

Find and implement new technologies for your operations by being part of the conversation early in the development process. The Virtual Poultry Tech Summit promotes collaboration between poultry industry professionals, technology innovators, researchers, investors and established technology providers with the ultimate goal of speeding the development and adoption of new technologies to benefit all aspects of the poultry supply chain.

Improve the odds that the next generation of robots, probiotics, vaccines, diagnostic tools, data aggregation and artificial intelligence, on-farm sensors and block chain systems will improve your operations’ performance and profitability by joining us at the 2020 Virtual Poultry Tech Summit. Collaborate and help shape the development of technologies that will help solve today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

I invite you to join this international gathering by registering to join us on October 20-22. The Virtual Poultry Tech Summit features the unveiling of exciting technologies in development, discussions of emerging technologies that are available now to solve industry challenges, and expert panels discussing the trends that will shape the future of the poultry industry.

http://www.wattagnet.com

Although the U.S. values the Latin American market and wants to regain its market share, it is necessary to take into account the elections in that country and the corollary of the pandemic in the Latin American economy.

USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service has just published a report on corn exports to Latin America. Nothing less than 25% of these commercial transactions are mainly done with Mexico, Colombia and Peru, as well as other countries.

The world’s largest importer of U.S. corn is Mexico, while Colombia and Peru are key markets in South America. It is just matter of reading the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) weekly reports to see the importance.

The increase in these imports has been the result of the growing demand for animal protein from a population that seemed to economically improve. There is also the inability of these countries to produce what they need because of inadequate policies, a lack of water and farmland, the prevalence of mountains and deserts, a lack of infrastructure, and perhaps many other reasons.

Around this and other grains is the term self-sufficiency, word overheard by politicians and dreamers, which seems increasingly distant and alien. Peru produces only one-third of its corn needs, Colombia 20%, and Mexico, although self-sufficient and even an exporter of white corn for human consumption, produces only 20% of its animal consumption needs. Mexico is the second largest producer of chicken and eggs in the region, while Colombia is third in both and Peru is fourth and fifth, respectively.

While Colombia and Peru are at different stages about duties and import quotas from the U.S., they are located relatively close to Brazil and Argentina. At a given time, these suppliers can be attractive. However, the ground transportation infrastructure still has shortcomings.

In the case of Mexico, the tariff situation with the U.S. is at a different stage and corn freely enters the country. In addition, Mexico has developed an important railway and road infrastructure, which allows 60 percent of imported corn to be distributed along these routes. Proximity has, of course, been an advantage, but it also represents a disadvantage if diversifying suppliers are desired.

On the other hand, this report informs that imports have been trailing off. But the market seems promising, and the U.S. hopes to regain its market share soon.

The impact of the current COVID-19 crisis on the economy and of the relationship between the U.S. government and Latin American governments, remains to be seen. Let us not forget the outcome of the elections in the United States. In these days, no one can say, “that is not going to happen,” because it can happen. For the good of all, I hope that trade relations will continue to enjoy a good, healthy status.

What do you think?

Fuente: www.wattagnet.com