Wayne Farms, one of the country’s largest poultry companies, is changing quickly to meet what it anticipates will be the demands of the future.
Since 2015, it’s invested heavily in its infrastructure, launched a line of antibiotic-free (ABF) and enhanced-welfare chicken, and introduced products for retail sale. The Oakwood, Georgia, integrated poultry company’s CEO Clint Rivers says the company operated deliberately in order to capitalize on the future demands of its customers.
Growing poultry output
Wayne Farms LLC is the seventh-largest integrated poultry company in terms of millions of pounds of ready-to-cook (RTC) chicken produced per week, according to WATT Global Media’s Top Broiler Companies data. The company operates nine slaughter plants, two further processing plants, 10 hatcheries and seven feed mills, according to 2018 data.
Between 2015 and 2019, the company raised its weekly RTC output to 47.8 million pounds from 45.4 million pounds. During the same period, the company completed nearly $300 million worth of improvements to its operations in Alabama, including a new, $55 million feed mill in Ozark, Alabama; a new $4.5 customer innovation center in Decatur, Alabama; a $105 million expansion of its processing plant in Enterprise, Alabama, and numerous improvements to its Dothan, Alabama, facility.
New ABF and GAP certified products
Wayne Farms launched ABF production in 2015. It began producing birds in accordance with the Global Animal Partnership’s welfare standards in 2017. The company’s production is now about 60% ABF, with two dedicated large-bird processing plants.
Traditionally, the company focused on marketing to foodservice and retail customers. Now, the company is launching branded, premium poultry products directly to consumers, too. In an exclusive interview with WATT PoultryUSA, Rivers said it’s all part of a broader plan to be prepared to sell these products when its customers ask for them.
“I didn’t want customers to come to us and say, ‘When can you do this,’ and us to say, ‘Well I don’t know, maybe in a year,’” Rivers said. “We wanted to have it.”
That calls for producing a small amount of GAP birds to limit exposure and learn from working with the standards. Rivers said the market is unpredictable and if a customer wants to start sourcing GAP birds immediately, Wayne Farms will be ready. For the same reason, it added a gas stunning line in its Enterprise, Alabama, processing facility. The company saw a similar transition with ABF birds. Once the company started to produce ABF, interest in the product grew.
The Global Animal Partnership
Global Animal Partnership is a third-party welfare standards organization linked to Whole Foods Market. The non-profit organization is based in Austin, Texas, and was founded in 2008 by Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey. All meat sold at the high-end grocer must be certified by GAP. The standards are tiered. The lowest rung, Step 1, calling for what it calls no crates, no cages and no crowding. The highest, Step 5+, calling for pasture raised animals who are born and slaughtered on the same farm.
Wayne Farms’ GAP birds, marketed as NAKED TRUTH Chicken, are rated GAP Step 2. This means the birds are raised in housing with additional space, natural light and enrichments designed to stimulate them. NAKED TRUTH birds grow slower than conventional broilers — as close to a 50 grams per day growth limit as the current breed allows — and are processed using controlled atmosphere stunning.
Growing GAP birds
Currently, the GAP growing operations are centered in southeastern Alabama. WATT PoultryUSA toured a GAP house in May 2019. Kris Torbert, Wayne Farms’ area live operations manager in southern Alabama, explained what new methods go into growing the birds and what challenges the flocks and growers faced so far.
GAP houses include windows made of greenhouse polymer. The higher light levels stimulate greater activity in the birds, a potential negative for broilers bred to pack on pounds, and causes flocks to spread unevenly throughout the houses. Areas with windows, and direct sun exposure, are hotter than those without, causing issues with even distribution of the flock throughout the house.
Wayne Farms is also experimenting with engagements. The featured house used tent shaped plastic structures giving the birds a place to hide and perch. Low perches were also hung. He said the integrator is trying every available apparatus investigating what works best. Hay bales definitely do not work. He said there are challenges, but the live production team is learning a lot as it goes along and is glad to be working on the frontier of the field.
Slow growing birds and beyond?
The key year for GAP is 2024. In March 2016, GAP announced its intent to require 100% slower-growing chicken breeds by January 1, 2024. In its current iteration, GAP’s chicken standards say the organization plans on transitioning all birds to enhanced welfare genetics by 2024.
In an interview, GAP Executive Director Anne Malleau said the organization is currently determining what constitutes enhanced welfare genetics. GAP is funding a study of broiler genetics at the University of Guelph in Canada. The study will measure welfare characteristics, including growth rate, and identify which strains yield the highest welfare outcomes for the chickens. The study is expected to be finished in 2019 and possibly published in early 2020.
Rivers said Wayne Farms and GAP have a good relationship. But he said he was concerned about how slower growing broiler genetics would affect the environmental impact of the chicken industry. He said he does not know how far GAP will go with growth rate requirements because those standards have not yet been written.
Currently, Wayne Farms is not working with any slower growing genetics. He said it will lean toward practices protecting animal welfare and the environment which are practical for the company.
Moreover, Rivers said he does not anticipate Wayne Farms will go with organic production in the future. He said it’s a niche market and the cost of feed makes it much less sustainable and more expensive to produce than conventional.
Nevertheless, Malleau said certification will require use of genetics approved by GAP.
“(In 2024), they will need to have the genetics that we decide on that are part of the program, but we’ve not made any decisions on those genetics yet,” Malleau said.
"Wayne Farms is part of our program, they've been a great partner, and I think as we move forward they'll decide if they want to continue to be one of our partners. But they've been an excellent partner they've been engaged in our process so there's nothing that makes me think they are not going to continue with us."
Ongoing capital improvement
Rivers said the company is currently carrying out a full-scale conversion of its hatcheries to single stage incubation. It is considering adoption of feeding and watering in the hatchery, too. The first hatchery, in Decatur, Alabama, is already finished. The campaign should last for the next year or two. The objective of the change, he said, is to help performance on the live side and improve feed conversion.
The company already added new processing lines at its Dothan and Enterprise locations. Enterprise added a new gas stunning and live bird handling system and an enclosed scalder system. The Dothan facility recently was granted a line speed waiver to gradually increase its processing line speed to 175 birds per minute. Wayne Farms is also weighing expanding its big bird operations and adding automation at those facilities.
The Ozark, Alabama, feed mill may also be expanded to grow its holding capacity. Rivers said the mill will soon be processing close to its capacity of 25 metric tons of feed a week due to the expansion of the south Alabama operations. Larger capacity would help it take in more train cars of corn.
Consumer facing products
Attention to retail, consumer facing products is a departure from its traditional market. Rivers said it recognized there was a place in the prepared food market for a product with elevated claims. It sees a potential niche in marketing unique products, utilizing different flavors like its chicken and waffle bites, or unique to market characteristics such as the recently launched sous vide filet product.
Along with the NAKED TRUTH product, which is available at 425 Whole Foods Market stores, it’s launching another new, specialty product line called LADYBIRD Premium Chicken aimed at foodservice and industrial clients. Rivers said the product will be female birds raised to seven pounds aged on the bone after evisceration. This should yield smaller carcasses with more tender meat exhibiting less symptoms of conditions like woody breast or white striping.
The LADYBIRD product launched in August 2019 and will expand with demand. Rivers anticipates customers looking for meat from bigger birds without the texture issues will be attracted to it.
The future
Rivers wants Wayne Farms to continue to grow. Its past growth was powered by maximizing efficiency surrounding its south Alabama infrastructure. Now, it aims for greater efficiency in its operations and is considering further expansion of its existing plants. The company is also open to growth through acquisition.
In 2015 and 2016, Wayne Farms – owned by Continental Grain Co. – withdrew from initial public offerings. Rivers said the company was ready to be listed but it didn’t see a great enough valuation to go through with it. However, if the timing is right for the company, Rivers said the company would pursue the opportunity again.
Learn more about Wayne Farms:
