Bachoco seeks acquisitions to grow US operations

Bachoco, the largest chicken producer in Mexico, is in search of acquisitions to grow its operations in the United States and gain a larger share of the global chicken market. Bachoco presently has 700 production and distribution facilities organized into nine complexes throughout Mexico, with a presence also in the United States, according to the WATT Global Media Top Companies database.
“We are in search of and hoping for alternatives for increasing our participation in the U.S.,” Daniel Salazar Ferrer, chief financial officer for Bachoco, told Bloomberg News. “We have to increase our critical mass to have a better competitive position.”
Bachoco presently holds two percent of the U.S. chicken market, after purchasing United States poultry producer O.K. Foods in 2011. The Mexican poultry company also in 2013 acquired Morris Hatchery’s breeding assets in Arkansas,which has a capacity of about 350 thousand laying hens that produce hatching eggs. 
Based in Celaya, Mexico, Bachoco has 35 percent of Mexico’s poultry market, and about 2 percent of the United States broiler market. The company ended fiscal year 2013 with a loss in net income but record net sales.