A second wave of COVID-19 in India is causing hardships for the country’s poultry industry. However, those challenges aren’t quite as sever because the situations related to the pandemic are being managed better than they were during the first wave in 2020, according to the Rabobank Poultry Quarterly Q3 report.
Business-to-consumer demand for poultry has remained steady in India, the report stated. But demand for poultry at the foodservice level, which had been recovering during the past two quarters, has been substantially affected because of the closure of restaurants and hotels.
In addition, Rabobank expects the demand for chicken to be down in the upcoming quarter because of fasting and other religious observances.
Rabobank further expects consumer demand for chicken to be modest in fiscal year 2021, but demand at the foodservice level is expected to continue to be limited.
Other factors impacting Indian poultry industry
The supply of day old chicks was affected in some Indian states because of supply chain disruptions. However, Rabobank stated that but that situation is expected to improve to some degree because of the anticipated lifting of lockdown orders in the coming months.
Feed prices have also been impacted in India because soybean prices have risen sharply in recent months, and corn prices have gone up slightly. Managing soybean meal supplies and prices will be a major challenge for the poultry industry in India during the 2022 fiscal year. The increase in feed prices to date is expected to impact the margins for poultry integrators during the upcoming fiscal year.
According to the WATT Poultry International Top Companies survey, Suguna Foods is the largest poultry producer in India, slaughtering 100 million broilers annually. Other leading broiler producers in India are Skylark Group and Godrej Agrovet, which during the past year slaughtered 24 million and 21 million broilers, respectively.
