Entrepreneurship, Training and Trade
Commodities: Livestock
Chicken
About the Industry | Supply Management | Processing | Export | Safety & Quality | Contacts
The Manitoba Advantage
Manitoba's central location makes it a logical choice for the production of broiler chickens.
This central location, in the heart of North America, provides excellent road, rail and air service to Manitoba producers and processors to acquire any inputs necessary for the broiler operations, or to access domestic and international consumers.
As well, Manitoba's long tradition as a world-class crop producing area provides Manitoba chicken producers with a large supply of competitively-priced feed.
It is these, and other advantages, that allow Manitoba to have one of the lowest costs of production figures for chicken across Canada.
About the Industry
Manitoba has 124 registered broiler chicken farms, the majority of which are located in the south-eastern corner of the province.
The size of these farms range from about 120,000 chickens to 1.5 million chickens produced per year.
The chickens are raised indoors in a large open space where they are protected from the weather and predators, and where they have the freedom to move, eat and drink.
The chicken industry is supplied with over 29 million chicks by four year round hatcheries and one seasonal hatchery.
These hatcheries received over 37 million hatching eggs from 40 local hatchery supply breeding flocks as well as from other Canadian provinces and the United States.
Supply Management
Chicken production in Canada is a supplied managed commodity regulated through the Federal-Provincial Agreement (FPA) for chicken.
The Chicken Farmers of Canada (national marketing agency) determines the level of chicken production based on the FPA.
Every 8 weeks, the Manitoba Chicken Producers (provincial marketing board) consult their stakeholders to determine the level of supply their markets need.
Quotas are also established for those provinces that are active in the export market.
Once these figures have been approved by the Agency, the Manitoba Chicken Producers allocate a quota to each individual producer.
Under this agreement, each province is allowed to increase its chicken production by a maximum of 8 percent over the base quota amount in each period.
Manitoba Chicken Producers also negotiates the price of chicken on behalf of the producers.
Processing
Two companies slaughter and process the majority of the registered chickens in Manitoba -- Granny's Poultry Cooperative (Manitoba) Ltd and Dunn-Rite Food Products Ltd.
A secondary processor, Prairie Produce Inc. processes limited amounts of chicken.
Due to the expansion in Manitoba's chicken industry over the last few years, the amount of chicken processed has been steadily increasing.
In 2000, over 36.6 million kg of chicken was processed, which was an 4.0 percent increase over the previous year.
Processed product include fresh and frozen whole chickens; boneless, skinless or whole chicken breasts and thighs; as well as a variety of other products including ground chicken, wings, drumsticks, and miscellaneous other parts.
Export
Manitoba has room for growth to supply both its domestic and export markets.
In 1998, Manitoba Chicken Producers began an ambitious expansion program to increase basic allotment by more than a third.
In fact, the quantity of chicken exported from Manitoba has more than tripled since 1998. Currently, Manitoba exports both live and processed chicken to countries such as the United States, Cuba, China, Japan and Russia, as well as other countries in the Far East and Latin America.
In addition to these markets, Manitoba chicken producers, who have a strong international reputation for producing a safe, high quality product, are investigating new export markets for their chicken products.
Food Safety & Quality
Manitoba's chicken producers follow the on-farm food safety assurance program entitled "Safe, Safer, Safest", which is based on the Good Production Practices Code as developed by the Chicken Farmers of Canada.
This program recommends the most modern methods and techniques to achieve optimum health, cleanliness and safety at every stage of production, and determines the Critical Control Points along with the associated surveillance methods and corrective actions.
By controlling the practices and potential hazards, our chicken producers give consumers the assurance that our chicken meets Canada's high quality food safety standards.
Contacts: |
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Brad Havixbeck Tel: 204-945-2397 or brad.havixbeck@gov.mb.ca or Send a Message or
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Manitoba Trade & Investment Other Links: |
