HATCHERY ▶▶▶
Australia’s Ingham’s invests to meet future demands
It might be a pretty closed market, self-sufficient and with hardly any exports, but the overall dynamics of poultry production in Australia are not very different from the rest of the world. Efficiency, welfare and planning for future needs are high on the agenda of Ingham’s, including investment in new hatcheries and parent stock farms.
BY FABIAN BROCKÖTTER
The Ingham’s team is proud to get the new hatcheries on- line, despite Covid-related problems during construction.
B
ack in 2019 Dutch firm HatchTech was granted a new hatchery project near the Australian city of Melbourne, followed by a second project in Perth, as Ingham’s sought to replace aging existing facili-
ties and expand production in other parts of Australia. Their choice fell upon the HatchCare system in which chicks have access to fresh water, feed and light in the hatcher directly af- ter hatching. The projects commissioned encompass the Pakenham hatchery, with a capacity of 50 million chicks a year, and the Western Australia one, with a capacity of 25 million chicks.
As one of the continent’s market leaders with a core poultry volume sold of 446.9 kilotonnes in 2021, Ingham’s has a long horizon and wants to be ready for future developments. “It all starts with the egg,” says Art Lankford, general manager pri- mary processing at Ingham’s. Looking at the general trends in poultry demand, investing in extra breeder capacity and hatcheries makes a lot of sense to his company. “Currently, the per capita consumption of poultry meat in Australia stands at 47.25 kilograms. That is already high compared to other countries around the world but nevertheless, that amount is expected to increase even further. On top of that, our continent’s population is growing and we are seeing an uptick in demand after Covid,” is how Lankford explains his planning for increased demand.
Lockdowns Reflecting on the years since the hatchery project got the green light from Ingham’s, Lankford says: “Australia has seen the strictest of lockdowns and that did affect our business. One certainly couldn’t call it ‘business as usual’. Covid-19 changed the world and it has changed Australia, too . We saw a volume shift from restaurants to retail. That said, we were able to adjust and were lucky that quick service restau- rants were still open for business. All our processing plants can handle different bird weights and change cut ups as de- mand shifts. That made us far more flexible than – for in- stance – specialised US plants. Across the board we are really fortunate that overall volumes remained similar and as a consequence, we had a solid financial year”. Moving forward, Lankford is optimistic: “We are now in a situation where things are returning to normal. The first Australian states are allowing businesses to re-open and slowly, but surely, tour- ists and other visitors from abroad are being allowed to en- ter the country again”. During the 18-month Covid standstill Ingham’s implement- ed quite some measures to ensure business continuity. Lankford: “We had a strict separation in plants and between shifts to ensure workplace safety and limit the fall out due to possible Covid infections”. At the same time, the hatchery
18 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 10, 2021
PHOTO: INGHAMS
PHOTO: BART NIJS FOTOGRAFIE
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