Broiler production in Canada has been scaled back until at least the end of August in an effort to adjust the supply to match the changes in demand brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the pandemic began, three Canadian broiler plants temporarily suspended operations. Those included a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brampton, Ontario; a Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry plant in Chilliwack, British Columbia; and a Superior Poultry Processors plant in Coquitlam, British Columbia. These plants have since resumed operations.
Meanwhile, stay-at-home orders and people no longer eating at restaurants and other foodservice venues like they did before the pandemic, has also impacted the Canadian poultry supply chain.
“Restaurants and foodservice represents about 40% of our production. There was a shift or pivot over to retail, but it wasn’t enough to make up that gap,” said Lisa Bishop-Spencer, Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC) director of brand and communications.
In February, the CFC Board of Directors determined the production levels for the period ranging from May to June, along with the following period from July to August. Following news of the pandemic, the CFC board met again and voted to reduce the allocation for the May-June period by close to 13% compared to February’s original allocation. This represents a 9% decrease from production during the same weeks of 2019.
Then, at the end of April, the CFC board adjusted the July-August allocation by 13% nationally compared to February’s allocation.
In May, after news of a slight increase in demand from foodservice, another review was conducted and the July-August domestic allocation was revised slightly upward. The revised allocation is 12% lower than what was decided in early February and is 10% below production in the equivalent weeks of 2019.
The Canadian poultry industry was able to reduce production and achieve target volumes primarily through placing fewer broiler eggs in hatcheries, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). The result has been a reduction of more than 50,000 metric tons of poultry produced in Canada, FAS stated.
In doing so, CFC believes it is in a better position to meet demands without the need to depopulate flocks, which has been done in other countries.
“We didn’t want to be in the position to where we were depopulating fully grown birds at the farm, because we hadn’t had to do that. We were trying to create the best circumstances to avoid that, if at all possible,” Bishop-Spencer said, although she acknowledged that a small number of hatching eggs were destroyed.
That decision to downsize Canadian poultry production has paid off so far. For example, Bishop-Spencer said, when the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brampton paused operations, chickens that would have been processed there were processed at other facilities.
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