By Tom Woolman, customer service manager, Annyalla Chicks
Aside my day job I like to do other things and one of the responsibilities I have is Chair of Governors at my children’s school. It’s a nice little village school which backs on to a farm. You can see cows out of the classroom window and the site sits next to a small church. Running a school, much like running a farm, is not without its challenges. I know many in the poultry sector feel the burden of auditing and in the world of education you have Ofsted to contend with.
Our last Ofsted inspection was three years ago and it’s fair to say it didn’t go as well as we had planned. We were reinspected this month and it was quite a different outcome – I’m not allowed to tell you what because the official report hasn’t been released yet – but things have moved forward. It’s not comfortable being challenged but it is a necessary process. I think sometimes in the poultry sector we feel like we are being unfairly scrutinised but let me assure you there is plenty of scrutiny in other walks of life. I’d take a Red Tractor inspection over Ofsted any day of the week.
Demand for chicken in the wholesale market remains extremely high, due to Eid al-Adha among other factors. I was chatting to a contact who told me that the price for halal drumsticks had spiked from £1.65 to £2.10 per kilogram. The lamb price is also through the roof, with demand strong and domestic supply continuing to contract year on year. The relationship between supply and demand is a key one for the profitability of our sector, we don’t want new supply to completely deflate pricing.
Looking sideways at the arable sector, my opinion is we are on borrowed time with the wheat price and things have got to keep moving up. I am no expert in this area but there is a lot of working capital tied up in producing crops yet demand for dog walking paddocks seems insatiable at the moment. All these dogs are going to need feeding, demand for chicken will grow and so the wheat price will recover. You heard it here first.