The Grocer – 20 July 2019

focus on... poultry

50 | The Grocer | 20 July 2019 Get the full story at thegrocer.co.uk

● The cheaper it is, the
faster it’s growing. It
doesn’t take a genius to
work out why sales of
chicken are flying, and
falling for turkey and duck.
● Average price per kilo of
chicken is down 0.5% to
£3.82, while turkey prices
are up 0.5% to £5.93. And
though the average price
of duck fell 4.9% – a whole
47p – it’s still £9.03 per kilo,
more than double that of
chicken.
● “Chicken remains an
inflation buster,” says
Kantar analyst Tobias

Hill-Summers. “We are

seeing the changing

mix help drive this price

decline, with dark meat

prices down, driven by

chicken legs.”

● Chicken legs saw one

of the biggest price drops,

down 3.1% to £2.82 per

kilo. That helped push up

volume sales by 8.4%.

● Whole duck saw the

category’s greatest price

drop, down 13.7% to £5.12

per kilo.

● Despite this price drop,

Kantar’s Hill-Summers says

duck has seen a 0.6% fall

in penetration, losing more

than 150,000 shoppers in

the past year.

● Still, it’s not all doom

and gloom for duck. The

remaining shoppers are

buying more, with trip

volumes up 8.3%.

Price concerns rule: poultry sales by value

Kantar’s Worldpanel FMCG service monitors consumer behaviour across Great Britain. Its primary panel tracks

take-home purchases of 30,000 demographically representative households. Data on consumption habits,

nutrition and out of home sales is collected through subsidiary panels. Visit kantarworldpanel.com for details.

Source: Kantar 52 w/e 24 March 2019 For the full data, visit thegrocer.co.uk

Total turkey

£281.3m

(▾ 2.5%)

Total duck

£ 3 7. 1 m

(▾ 1.6%)

Breasts

£1,221.9m

(▲ 3.9%)

Whole chicken

£565.7m

(▾ 2.0%)

Leg

£312.9m

(▲ 5.1%)

Other

£80.6m

(▾ 11.7%)

“In the worst-case no-

deal scenario, the price

of breast meat could rise

b y 2 5 %”

to stop EU workers, who make up 70% of

its factory workforce, from flying the coop.

“This is a major issue for the whole of the

food industry,” says Brisby. “We’re having

to pay people more and we’re also looking

to improve the overall working conditions

and perks throughout the business, including

better facilities. Labour is going to become a

highly competitive market.”

At the same time, it has ploughed £60m

investment into a poultry factory in Suffolk,

dubbed the most advanced in Europe, that is

due to open in October. All of which means

the continued decline in chicken prices is

looking pretty unsustainable.

That’s particularly true of ‘fake farm’ own-

label lines, which have been a driving force

behind the downward pressure on chicken

prices. Take Aldi’s Ashfield Farm chicken

thighs, which are the cheapest on the shelf,

costing £1.65 per kilo. A kilo pack of Lidl’s

new Birchwood Farm offering will set you

back £1.79, while the closest comparable

product under Tesco’s Willow Farms brand,

a 750g pack of chicken thighs, carries a price

of £1.66 a kilo. These lines are proving popu-

lar for obvious reasons. Tesco’s Willow Farms

skinless chicken breast portions have added

£25m to the category alone since their launch

in summer 2018 [Kantar].

But as much as consumers may appreciate

affordable chicken, a no-deal Brexit could

make prices of under £2 per kilo unthinka-

ble. Jason Winstanley, head of research and

insight at Moy Park, is clear the fallout would

“almost certainly” translate to an increase in

prices of British chicken.

The British Poultry Council goes one step

further in its concerns. “We estimate in the

worst-case no-deal scenario, the price of

breast meat could rise by 25%,” says PR man-

ager Shraddha Kaul.

Kaul says this is all down to “increases

in the costs of production”, which will be

caused by a potentially even weaker pound

and even scarcer supply of workers. As prices

rise, the BPC is worried that cheaper imports

will take the place of British produce among

consumers who can’t afford that extra 25%.

“Brexit threatens to create a two-tier food sys-

tem based on affluence,” says Kaul.

As she explains, a no-deal Brexit could

increase the availability of cheap imports.

Currently, around three quarters of our

imported chicken comes from the EU,

with the rest coming from third countries

Chicken cuts