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FARM VISIT ▶▶▶


Welfare label ensures a premium for meat and eggs


A group of poultry farmers in the French department of Sarthe focuses on animal welfare. The word ‘Liberté’ (liberty) is proudly printed on egg cartons and poultrymeat packaging. Several quality labels are designed to persuade consumers to spend more money on animal-friendly eggs and meat.


Working together


Dutch company Moba installed brand new robots at its egg pack- ing station L’Oeuf in the village of La Bazoge. The robots are capa- ble of doubling capacity. That may not seem much but instead of just one farm’s eggs, the eggs of more than one farm can now be packed in an egg carton, each one with a stamp on it that shows the origin per farm, ensuring egg traceability. It means that the transporters used to sort boxes with the packed eggs can be used far more intensively. “Instead of 40,000 eggs per hour, we can now manage 80,000,” explains proud owner Christophe Bériard. He has welcomed many visitors from abroad who wanted to catch a glimpse of the new robots. He prefers not to say how much they cost.


BY HANS SIEMES T


he village of Loué, near Le Mans, looks like a typi- cal French village: small, peaceful and quiet. A stat- ue of a large chicken at the entrance to the village immediately draws attention. This is what the


The Moba egg packer ensures tracability to individual farms.


northwestern region is all about. There are 1,200 poultry farmers (200 with laying hens, 1,000 with broilers) in a 25 kilometre radius around Loué. The village’s name even made it into a brand that is sold in supermarkets around the country. Poultry farmer Didier who, incidentally, bears a sur- prising likeness to soccer legend Didier Deschamps, adver- tises the brand on large posters with a nod to the French soccer coach. Originally, Loué had a large poultry market that turned into a strong poultry sector. For many farms it was lucrative to keep poultry in addition to beef cattle and arable farming. One or two have specialised. It is the birthplace of the LDC Groupe. With 16,000 employees in France, 6,000 abroad and a turnover of € 4.1 billion, it is by far the largest company in the French poultry chain. Founded in 1968, the family com- pany has multiple poultry slaughterhouses, feed companies, egg packing stations, breeding farms and egg and meat processing facilities. Cavol, a modern company and part of the LDC Groupe, slaughters and processes half a million UBA chickens a week in Loué. Every week, some 3-4,000 kilograms of the meat finds its way to Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn to be sold as two-star meat. Other buyers include McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Marie, a popular brand in France. The company is completely focused on producing poultry with three different welfare labels: organic, free range and the French Label Rouge. This label is issued by the French government and places high demands on animal welfare to obtain its three stars. The broilers are a slower growing breed and live much longer than regular broilers: 81 days. They also have more space: 4.3 chicks per square metre, including outside free range. 400,000 broilers leave the slaughterhouse under the Label Rouge.


▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 6, 2020 11


PHOTO: HANS SIEMES


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