Chicken Selects to return to McDonald's menu

• 

  WATT Global Media

  McDonald's is bringing Chicken Selects back to its menu after having discontinued the chicken tenders item in 2013.

  From WATTAgNet:
  McDonalds is bringing back Chicken Selects, a chicken tenders menu option that it discontinued in 2013. Chicken Selects will begin appearing at McDonald’s restaurants for at least a limited time, beginning in early March.
  According to McDonald’s spokeswoman Terri Hickey, the move not only makes economic sense as beef prices continue to be high, but it also is a response to customer demand.
  “We are always listening to our customers and evolving our menu offerings to reflect their tastes and preferences, and we are excited to bring back this item that customers told us they enjoyed,” Hickey said.
  Chicken Selects had been on the McDonald’s menu for 10 years, before the company decided to trim down its menu offerings. The move comes in spite of a McDonald’s decision made two months earlier to further streamline its menu.
  One analyst believes McDonald’s decision to reintroduce chicken tenders in its restaurants will be good for the poultry industry, as it should raise demand for chicken, therefore driving up prices and stabilizing the supply.
  “It’s a good thing for the chicken industry,” said Brett Hundley, an analyst for BB&T Capital Markets. “Continuing limited-time offers are definitely a positive for keeping supply and demand aligned.”

South Africa's RCL Foods relies less on frozen chicken sales

• 

  Andrea Gantz

  RCL Foods is shifting away from frozen chicken sales and relying more on smaller birds.

  From WATTAgNet:
  South African company RCL Foods has significantly reduced its reliance on low-profit frozen chicken by producing smaller birds that can be sold at higher prices to restaurants.
  Individually quick frozen (IQF) chicken products, sold to supermarkets, yield thin margins for domestic poultry producers, partly thanks to what the industry sees as "dumped" imports of cheap portions, the company said. Poultry producers make more money selling to fast-food chains, though they can only supply those customers with smaller birds that fit specific weight requirements.
  RCL Foods CEO Miles Dally said February 18 that his company, which produces poultry under its Rainbow Chicken brand, had reduced IQF volumes by about 40 percent by ensuring its birds were the right size.
  IQF now makes up less than 25 percent of Rainbow’s total volumes of about 5-million birds a week. Dally said RCL was producing lower volumes and smaller chickens, but with higher margins. "We’ve made massive strides" in terms of margins, he said.
  Margins in IQF would improve if import tariffs became effective and when the government enforced caps on the amount of brine water that can be injected into frozen chicken, Dally said.
  "We took a decision a while ago to cap our injection at a level that we thought was appropriate. We haven’t even felt the benefit of that yet, so we’ve had to try to do other things while we wait for the government to enforce this cap that they’ve agreed to," said Dally.

Proposed layer farm opponents sue county, Sonstegard Foods

• 

  Freeimages.com/srbichara

  Opponents of a proposed Sonstegard Foods layer farm in Turner County, S.D., are suing the company the county.

  From WATTAgNet:
  A group of homeowners is suing South Dakota’s Turner County Commission and Sonstegard Foods, the owners of a proposed layer farm, in hopes of keeping the company from building the operation near the city of Parker.
  Sonstegard Foods, parent company of Sunrise Farms, hopes to build an $85 million farm, which when fully realized, would house 6 million hens.
  The plaintiffs claim the commission used a fax from the Sonstegard Foods to re-write the county's zoning ordinance without public input. In doing so, the commission made it possible to locate the operation less than three miles from Parker city limits.
  Michael Schaffer, who represents three couples opposed to the Sonstegard Foods facility, in the lawsuit asks a judge to declare the ordinance null and void, which he says would nullify any building permit the county issues.
  The county's lawyer, Matt Olson, says the commission didn't break any rules. State law was followed in the 2014 zoning ordinance rewrite, and Sonstegard Foods' proposal could be eligible for permits at its current location under the old or new version of the ordinance regardless, OIson said.
  At issue is a last-minute tweak to the way animal units are calculated in permits for concentrated animal feeding operations. Turner County's planning and zoning board met several times in 2014 to rework its 2008 rules. The changes were designed to make livestock permitting easier, Olson said.
  Under the old ordinance – which was approved by the zoning board and sent to the county commission for approval - each chicken in a liquid manure system counted as .01 animal units. Under that factor, Sonstegard's operation would be equal to a 60,000 beef cattle operation and need to be 5.4 miles from any city.
  In Moody County and in the entire state of Minnesota, chickens in a dry manure barn are calculated with a different factor: .003 animal units. Under those calculations, Sonstegard has an 18,000 animal operation. That can be placed less than 2.5 miles from a city.
  Peter Sonstegard, vice president for sales of Sonstegard Foods, sent a fax with Moody County's animal unit rules to the county commission after its September 9 first reading of the new zoning ordinance, Argus Leader reported. That fax showed up on the commissioners' table at the second reading of the zoning ordinance in September 2014, the lawsuit claims, and the new rules were added and approved without further public notice of the specific change.
  That fax should have been available for public viewing, Schaffer said, and the zoning ordinance should have gone back to the zoning board before the county commission approved it. Because that process wasn't followed, Schaffer said, and because "there are serious questions" about how much access there was to the zoning ordinance for public review, the suit says the zoning ordinance is invalid.
  However, the county commission has the authority to make changes to a zoning ordinance between a first and second reading, Olson said, and it can do so by considering any public input. Also, Olson said the zoning ordinance was changed several times during the yearlong revision process, and all of the revisions were available for public review at the planning office in the courthouse, he said.
  At a recent meeting with the zoning board, planning commissioners and Olson told the plaintiffs that Sonstegard had no hand in drafting the 2014 ordinance.
  The company and county commissioners have 30 days to respond to the lawsuit. Sonstegard Foods has applied for a conditional permit, but a hearing on the matter has yet to be scheduled.

Brazil poultry industry targets value-added chicken on home market

With poultry meat consumption in Brazil now so high, the industry is looking at not only growing per capita poultry meat consumption, but increasingly at encouraging the consumption of value-added products.
Executive president of the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA) Francisco Turra has said: “We have per capita consumption equivalent to that of the USA, and almost four times greater than that of the European Union. With such high levels of consumption, companies are looking to increase not only consumption per person, but they are primarily looking to direct the consumer to added-value products.”
The national agricultural society (SNA), says that poultry meat is the most consumed animal protein in Brazil, and consumed by 100 percent of households.
According to Turra, while consumption figures for last year are yet to be finalized, the country is among the 10 biggest consumers of poultry meat in the world. 2014’s production of poultry meat was beaten only by the amount produced in 2011. Brazilian exports of poultry meat, however, reached record levels.
Turra believes that the outlook for 2015 is positive for the industry.
“The recognition of new plants for exports to China, together with the ongoing shipments to Russia and other important markets, will contribute to the expected 3 percent growth in volumes this year,” he said.

VICTAM International to celebrate 50 years in 2015

VICTAM International will celebrate its 50^th year in 2015 at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany, June 9-11, 2015.
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VICTAM International will celebrate its 50^th year in 2015 at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany, June 9-11, 2015. VICTAM International will be held this year as part of three co-located exhibitions, along with FIAAP International and GRAPAS International.
The three events will bring together animal feed ingredients and processing technology, biomass pelleting systems, flour milling and grain processing.
VICTAM is the world’s largest and international exhibition and conference for the animal feed, pet food and aquafeed industries, and the biomass pelleting sector.
FIAAP exhibitors will display ingredients and additives that are necessary for the successful formulation of animal feed, aquafeed, dry pet food and specialty feeds. VICTAM will cover the latest technology and system used in the manufacture and processing of these animal feeds, aquafeed, dry pet food and specialty feeds. Many international manufacturers of biomass pelleting plants also will be on display.
A large number of companies will exhibit the essential ancillary equipment that is necessary for the smooth operation of a feed mill, flour mill or a rice mill. The latter two will be profiled in the GRAPAS trade show as this exhibition covers grain processing, storage and transportation, flour and rice milling technology, and pasta, breakfast cereal and extruded snack production. A large number of stands with ancillary equipment also will be on display.
Exhibitors
The VICTAM exhibitions display the latest and appropriate technology available that is used in the manufacture and processing of feeds for animals, pets and aquatics, together with a wide range of necessary ancillary equipment – silos, conveyors, bagging, elevators, etc.  The exhibitions also showpiece the newest equipment for the production of biomass pellets.
Visitors
Visitors travel from all over the world to attend VICTAM events. These are the senior executives – CEOs, directors, mill and transport managers, nutritionists, veterinarians, feed formulators from feed mills, integrators, co-operatives, large farms, fish farms, hatcheries, pet food processors, etc. Senior personnel from biomass pelleting plants will also visit to see the large selection of equipment on display.

Suidae Health and Production, ISU awarded Zoetis PEDv grants

Zoetis has awarded research grants to Suidae Health and Production and to Iowa State University (ISU) to discover solutions that can help improve control of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus in breeding and farrowing herds.
“We were interested in proposals that help discover novel approaches for optimizing the immune response of sows and gilts to help control PEDv,” said Steve Sornsen, DVM, MS, senior director, Veterinary Business Solutions, Zoetis. “We’re pleased to collaborate with well-experienced veterinarians representing academic and production interests. The outcome of these projects should provide insights into new PEDv control methods that can be incorporated into current production systems for the industry.”
The two proposals were selected by a cross-functional group of Zoetis colleagues among a group of eight finalists. Both projects are expected to be completed in 2015.
Suidae Health and Production, a swine veterinary practice with three locations across Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, will use its grant in the amount of $98,000 to study the efficacy of vaccination in boosting the immune response to PED virus in both naïve sows and previously exposed sows. Results will be compared to naïve sows that receive a placebo.
“I’m very excited to serve the swine community with research and development efforts to help control PEDv,” said Trevor Schwartz, DVM, Suidae Health and Production. “I’m thankful for Zoetis’ commitment to increasing the information available to veterinarians and producers.”
The $59,000 grant awarded to ISU extends the partnership between school researchers and Zoetis on multiple projects related to PED virus management.
“Losses in breeding herds chronically affected by PEDv can be devastating,” said Derald Holtkamp, DVM, MS, assistant professor, ISU. “The source of the problem in these chronically affected herds appears to be an imbalance between immunity passed onto the piglets and the viral load of PEDv in the environment.”
University researchers will measure the effectiveness of the conditionally licensed PED vaccine  from Zoetis in helping to reduce PED virus incidence on chronically affected breeding farms by studying the effect of the killed vaccine on immunological parameters in terms of both sow and colostral immunity.
“Our goal is to then determine if we can measure and predict PEDv immunity and if that immunity improves productivity in a chronically affected breeding herd,” added Chris Rademacher, DVM, swine extension veterinarian, ISU.
Cases of PED virus have been confirmed in at least 33 states, and about 30 percent of farms report a reoccurrence within a year of an initial outbreak. After reaching 12-month lows for new cases of PED virus in the middle of October 2014, reports of new cases increased in December as colder weather moved in.

VIV Turkey to see largest opening in 2015

The 7^th VIV Turkey, which will run June 11-13, 2015, is opening larger than ever this year. Considered the leading international trade fair of its kind in the region, VIV Turkey is a UFI (The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry)-approved event and recognized as the International Poultry Trade Fair of Turkey.
Supported by the leading Turkish poultry associations and organizations, VIV Turkey occupies an important position in poultry industry as a meeting point in Istanbul for Turkish companies wishing to enter new markets and non-Turkish companies wishing to enter Turkish market. 
Countries expected to participate in VIV Turkey include Argentina, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, The Netherlands, Tunis, Turkey, Hungary, Malaysia and the U.S.
VIV’s Feed-to-Meat concept covers the entire animal protein chain, from primary production to finished products. VIV Turkey represents all parts of the meat production process