Companies invest in China’s poultry sector

Poultry reports from China include news of 2009 investments, as well as of the profitability of Chinese production companies.
Among the investments is a joint venture started by the country’s largest meat processor, Shineway, with Nippon Ham of Japan to create a $250M poultry complex in Henan province. The complex is scheduled to open later this year and to produce 50 million broilers annually for an output of 120,000 metric tons of chicken products per year. There will also be a mill with an annual production rate of about 300,000 metric tons of poultry feed.
Yuhe International has set a target of producing 150 million day-old broiler chicks in 2010, having recently completed its twenty-eighth breeder farm in Shandong province and nearing completion on a new hatchery. Local reports in China also say that Cargill will add to its Chinese poultry interests this year by investing about $80M in a broiler processing plant in Anhui province.
Among poultry companies issuing their latest annual reports, Fujian Sunner from southern China announced an increase of more than 10% in its net profits in 2009, largely from supplying chicken meat to KFC. But net profit was down 14% for duck specialist Huaying Agricultural Development in Henan province, although the company is pressing ahead with plans to boost its number of commercial ducks by 16% in 2010.
For Minhe Animal Husbandry in Shandong, a one-third drop in the price it received for its day-old chicks, combined with lower chicken prices and higher feed costs, led to a loss of ¥42.4M in 2009, compared with a profit of ¥51.5M in 2008.