The chicken producers that make up the top 10 in the World’s Top Poultry Companies database are a diverse group. Some have a history stretching back almost 100 years, while others are relative newcomers.
There are leading poultry companies that focus almost exclusively on chicken production, while others are part of much broader concerns. Some concentrate almost exclusively on their home markets while others increase their international focus year by year, through export growth or joint ventures and acquisitions.
What unites them all, however, apart from producing chicken, is continual investment, whether it be in expanding already existing facilities, acquiring competitors, diversifying or re-aligning product mix, or investing overseas in the face of disease or other pressures.
Mining the World’s Top Poultry Companies database reveals information about the following:
JBS
Brazil’s JBS slaughters more head of chicken than any other company in the world, with latest data suggesting 3,500 million per annum.
Created in the mid-twentieth century, the company’s history of acquisitions continues apace.
2013 saw the company purchase fellow Brazilian business Seara, giving it a stronger position in prepared foodstfuffs and strengthening JBS’s brand portfolio. The acquisition also made JBS into one of Brazili’s largest poultry, pork and processed food companies.
2015 saw a number of additional acquisitions, including Australia’s Primo Smallgoods, and the UK’s Moy Park, allowing the company to start building a European processed food production and distribution platform.
More recently, however, JBS has run into a number of difficulties, including debt restructuring, allegations of corruption, the jailing of two members of its owning family and a cancelled IPO in the USA. In May this year, the company invested in a pork concern in the USA, but in June, the world’s largest meat processor announced that it would divest US$1.8 billion worth of its business.
Tyson Foods
The second largest global poultry producer by head slaughtered, is the number one poultry producer in the USA. Last year saw Tyson Foods reduce chicken production for the second year in a row, but turn its focus to consumer value and improving margins.
In 2015, Tyson sold its Brazilian and Mexican operations, but saw the company launch a venture capital fund to invest up to US$150 million in food startups in alternative proteins.
BRF
Sitting in third place is Brazil’s BRF, formed out of the association of Sadia and Pedigao in 2009.
Since its creation, BRF has absorbed a number of companies around the world. For example, in 2012, BRF bought Argentina’s Quickfood and a 49 percent stake in Federal Foods, distributor of Sadia products in the Middle East. The same year saw it set up Dah Chong Hong to distribute to QSRs in Hong Kong and the Far East.
2014 saw the company establish a joint venture with Indonesia’s Indofood for poultry and processed food, while 2015 saw the company establish a joint venture in Singapore. In 2016, the company signed an agreement with FFM Berhand of Malaysia.
Last year saw the creation of subsidiary Sadia Halal, followed this year by the establishment of Onefoods, the largest halal animal protein company in the world. 2017 has also seen BRF take a controlling stake in Turkey’s Banvit.
New Hope Liuhe
China is home to the world’s fourth largest poultry producer New Hope Liuhe, formed in 2005 through a merger between New Hope Group and Liuhe Group.
The company operates in chicken breeding and processing, selling in China and in a various neighboring countries as well as in Europe, Africa and the Americas
In 2015, New Hope Liuhe approved investments of close to US$61 million for poultry and feed projects, and has, more recently, made significant investments in pork production.
Wen’s Food Group
China is also home to Wen’s Food Group, which sells in more than 20 provinces and municipalities throughout the country. Recently announced investments by Wen’s have been in the pig and feed sectors.
CP Group
Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group is Thailand’s largest private company and one of the world’s largest conglomerates. The CP Foods division, established in the late 1970s, is not only one the world’s largest poultry producers but also the world’s largest feed producer.
In 2012, the company set up the CP Pakistan division, and in 2014 it established an alliance with Japan’s Itochu Corporation to develop business opportunities within agribusiness, livestock and food, logistics, finance and pharmaceuticals.
Perdue Farms
The USA’s Perdue Farms, which can trace its history back to 1920, is the parent company of Perdue Foods and Perdue AgriBusiness. The family owned business, producing 12 million broilers per week, is one of the largest poultry producers in its home country and now operates around the globe.
Koch Foods
Established in 1985, Koch Foods started as a one-room chicken de-boning and cutting operation, with 13 employees and has since grown to be one of the largest poultry processors in the USA with 13,000 staff.
In 2015, Koch Foods re-invested US$100 million in state of the art technology to expand capacity and capabilities in Ohio and Mississippi.
Industrias Bachoco
Industrias Bachoco is the largest poultry company in Mexico, holding close to a 40 percent market share, and has over 1,000 production and distribution facilities throughout the country.
Bachoco has recently made a number of purchases in the USA, including OK Foods in 2011, the Morris Hatchery broiler breeding operations in Arkansas in 2013, and the Morris Hatchery broiler breeding operations in Georgia in 2015.
Arab Company for Livestock Development (ACOLID)
ACOLID is owned by 12 Arab states to support food security, and comprises 39 operating units, including several poultry subsidiaries involved in breeding, table and hatching egg production and broiler meat production.
Between 2012 and 2016, ACOLID’s poultry meat production increased by 16 percent, despite economic and political difficulties in some of the countries where the company operates. More recently, the company has announced that it is on track to meet expansion targets, despite having faced difficulties with disease outbreaks.
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