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Level 7, 122 Walker Street
NORTH SYDNEY
PO Box 579, North Sydney NSW 2059
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Structure and Ownership
The chicken meat industry is predominantly vertically integrated. This means that generally, individual companies own almost all aspects of production - breeding farms, multiplication farms, hatcheries, feed mills, some broiler growing farms, and processing plants. This makes chicken unlike most other rural industries, which typically operate through a more complex supply chain.
Two large integrated national companies supply more than 70% of Australia’s broiler chickens - Baiada and Inghams Enterprises- following the acquisition of Bartter/Steggles by Baiada in July 2009. To satisfy ACCC's requirements, Bartter's Victorian operation was acquired by Turi Foods (owner of La Ionica Poultry). Inghams and Baiada are privately owned, with farming and processing operations in 5, resp. all 6 states.
The balance of the market is supplied by another six medium-sized, privately owned companies, which each supplying between approximately 3% and 9% of the national market, and a myriad of smaller processors.
Growing broiler chickens, from day old chicks to the day of processing, is generally contracted out by processing companies to contract growers. Approximately 800 growers produce about 80% of Australia ’s meat chickens under these contracts. Other meat chickens are produced on large company farms, or on farms owned and managed by ‘intermediary’ companies which own a number of farms, each managed by a farm manager, and who enter into contracts with processing companies to grow out chickens on a larger scale.
Contract growers own the farm and provide the management, shedding, equipment, labour, bedding and other inputs to rear chickens. The processing company provides (and owns) the chickens and provides feed, medication and technical advice.
In some states, the fees and terms of grower contracts are established by state government-constituted committees. They may be negotiated between growers or groups of growers, under ACCC authorisation, and companies in other states.
Other facilities owned include:
- Some poultry producing companies also own breeding farms, supplemented by some contract operators, and supply eggs to their company’s hatchery
- The major companies own feed mills
- The major companies have laboratories to test samples for common poultry pathogens and other bacteria.
- Several companies have their own research farms.
- A number of medium sized companies own parent breeding farms and, in some cases, hatcheries.
- The larger companies have product research and development facilities.
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