Streamlining live operations & processing

[00:00] And of course, once you put the chick on the ground, it’s going to grow six, six weeks, seven weeks, whatever it is dependent on the weight ranges, and you once it’s there, it’s there, it’s going to grow. And so your ability to change that is quite limited. So there’s a really strong need for really working on forecasting, accuracy of forecasting from the sales demand through the SKU’s and product ranges, in order to have time to manipulate your cycles in terms of how many birds you want at, you know, one and a half kilos, how many birds you want at 2 kilos, how many you want at because you’re all going to take longer periods of time to grow and reach that mature weight.  

[00:47] Yeah, so now let’s, let’s move a little bit to the supply, right, so being our chickens that are coming to the processing plant, and like you said, the planning by catch weight and selling by cage weight is long gone. So now we need to grow a particular type of chicken particular weight, weight profile, bell curve, all that and then send it to the processing plant in the right time. So that’s already sounds pretty complicated, because it’s a live animal, you cannot just program it and grow 50 grams a day, then grow 100 grams a day, and then, you know, go to the processing plant in 35 days. So it is also quite a big challenge, every time in communication between processing plant and live operations on what to grow, how to grow, whether they can make it or cannot make it. So how is that working out?

[01:47] Yeah, well, that’s always, that’s always really tough, isn’t it, because you’ve got to set an egg in a machine, you’ve got to wait three weeks, then before it to hatch and then place it on the farm. You know, so you’re actually dealing in timelines of three, three months effectively. And time windows in terms of anything you can impact. And of course, once you put the chick on the ground, it’s going to grow six, six weeks, seven weeks, whatever it is, depending on the weight ranges, and you once it’s there, and it’s there, it’s going to grow. And so your ability to change that is quite limited. So there’s a really strong need for working on forecasting and accuracy of forecasting from the sales demand through the SKU’s and product ranges, in order to have time to manipulate your cycles in terms of how many birds you want at, you know, one and a half kilos, how many birds do you want at two kilos, because they’re all going to take longer periods of time to grow and reach that mature weight. So, the lead times are quite fun. And there’s always real tension there between sales, processing, and agriculture and agriculture have to take a view, they have to set the egg they have to place the bird after you’ve done that, there are things you can do but your opportunity to change things significantly narrows. So that’s, that’s quite fun. And then of course, if you get that bit right, you then got to consider rejects and condemnations that may happen and okay, they may only be small volume, but you need to consider that because these carcasses or parts of chicken are not you know going to sell them for human consumption, you then got grading and, you know, for fresh producers, the actual grading of the carcass, even if it’s the right weight, you’re going to have a double A or an A or a B grade and whichever grading system you use, which will again further limit the amount of carcasses that you can sell as double A or Grade A chicken all of that needs to come in on top of which you then have breed because you know the breeds are going to use slightly differently they’re going to cut slightly differently. So carb and Ross are going to grow slightly differently. So that needs to be considered the sex of the birds some people are still sexing birds and they’re obviously going to give you different weights at different ages males and females and different carcass shape and size. So cutting is going to be different. So there’s all of that aspect to consider in terms of the live supply. And in many parts of the world we we thin chickens in order to meet these kind of ranges, we have to thin birds, the lighter weights, you know one and a half 1.7 kilos and then we go back in and take the rest out at 2.4, 2.5. There are other countries that we work in that are thinning three and four times at different weight ranges in order to meet the current case sizes required for different SKU’s that they have to meet. So that adds considerable complexity because most companies now grow into maximum stocking densities in houses and specific welfare legislation that limits their ability to, to go over these sort of weight ranges, there’s a lot to consider they’re added to which, in the last few years, we’ve said, Well, maybe we can grow different types of chickens. So rather than just have a standard chicken, maybe we can also go a free-range chicken, maybe we can grow a slightly slower growing bird, kind of. What is it better chicken commitment, or European chicken commitment one? Or maybe we can grow an organic chicken. And quite often these birds are all being killed through the same factory. So again, that just adds tremendous amount of complexity, not just in an agricultural sense, but in how do you manage that product from the receiving be at the plant at the processing plant into the right product range? So you’re selling it at the right price, you know, and you’re managing that traceability and these products that cost you a lot more to grow than the standard chicken, you’re actually packing them right and realizing the full value potential for them when you’re selling the end product. So that’s been quite fun and as a few extra things happened there over the last 10 years or so and more recently, that increased the amount of chicken options you have.

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