Restrictions on the movement of trucks and other vehicles during the COVID-19 pandemic is causing disruptions to the poultry industry, a leader with India’s Suguna Foods said.
Despite the fact that chicken, meat and livestock have been classified as essential commodities, companies such as Suguna are struggling to keep the supply chain flowing.
“The restrictions on movement (of) vehicles due to lockdown is disrupting the supply chain at various levels – hatcheries, feed mills, poultry farms and retail outlets,” Ravindhara Babu, general manager, marketing, Suguna Foods, told Telangana Today.
Babu noted that trucks are used to move chicks to farms, feed from mills to farms and birds to retailers.
The company is asking the Indian government to intervene and allow the movement of trucks.
“The fact that there is mortality and perishability involved in the trade makes it vulnerable to the disruptions in the supply chain,” Babu said, adding that Suguna Foods employees practice proper social distancing measures and frequently use sanitizers and disinfectants.
Poultry producers in India face this challenge, in addition to a public perception problem, after social media posts in India and Pakistan had falsely warned that the COVID-19 virus could be caught from eating chicken. Fears generated from those posts resulted in a dramatic downturn in chicken consumption in those two countries.
Suguna Foods, according to the WATTAgNet Top Poultry Companies Database, is an integrated poultry operation that markets live broiler chickens, value-added table eggs and frozen chicken products, and operates a chain of retail outlets. It is the largest poultry company in India, the fourth largest poultry company in Asia and the 15th largest poultry company in the world, having slaughtered 400 million broilers during the past year.
In addition to serving the Indian market, the company exports frozen chicken to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, Oman, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Qatar and Japan, as well as other markets.
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