THE JAMAICA Broilers' Group (JB) has invested more than $20 million to acquire the hatchery operation of its competitor, Kingston Hatcheries, says Robert Levy, president and CEO of Jamaica Broilers.
The new hatchery operation will be combined with JB's own Best Dressed Chicken Hatchery, Mr. Levy said. The transaction will become effective in June.
"Our company is the largest producer of chicken in Jamaica," Mr. Levy said. Jamaica Broilers puts an average of 750,000 kilos of chicken into the market each week, under its "Best Dressed Chicken" brand.
COMPETITION
The group's nearest competitors in poultry production are the country's 10,000 small poultry farmers who produce about 30 per cent of the chicken that enters the Jamaican market each week. That is second only to Jamaica Broilers Group.
The small farmers grow in excess of 100 chickens each, and there are many others growing smaller numbers of birds in their backyards, Mr. Levy said. He was speaking at the opening of the inaugural Jamaica Chicken Festival at the James Bond Beach, St. Mary, on Saturday.
The existing JB hatchery is the largest in Jamaica, supplies most of its broiler chicks to the group's contract farmers. The remainder, which includes both broilers and layers, is sold to backyard and commercial egg farmers.
Kingston Hatcheries focuses its production on the independent farmers.
"Jamaica Broilers Group took all of this into consideration when Kingston Hatcheries approached us, sometime ago, to investigate whether we would be interested in purchasing their hatcheries," Mr. Levy said. "Jamaica Broilers looked at just how important it was to ensure that healthy chicks enter the small-farming industry's grow-out operations on a consistent basis," Mr. Levy said. Failure to do so could, over the long term, impact negatively on the country's entire poultry industry, from a preventive perspective.
Jamaica Broilers is to become a supplier of fully-vaccinated chicks going into the small farmer marketplace, Mr. Levy said. During June and July, the Best Dressed Chicken Hatchery will efficiently deliver to the small farm poultry sector some 300,000 fully-vaccinated baby chicks.
With the investments being made in the industry, he said, "it is fairly safe to feel confident in the future of Jamaica's poultry industry, despite the on-going challenges that the sector faces."
