Economic contribution

Production

Every year the UK poultry meat industry rears over 830 million chickens, 17 million turkeys, 19 million ducks, and around 100,000 geese. As a country over 90% of the poultry meat that we eat is produced in the UK.

Retail

At the retail level the poultry industry is worth around £3.4 billion to the UK economy every year.

Primary products, such as whole birds, breasts, legs, and drumsticks, remain the single largest category with over 40% of the total market. This shows that cooking fresh produce is still the UK’s first choice. The convenience of portions, like breasts or thighs, is continuing to be more popular than the traditional roast dinner. With free-range and organic products at 6% and growing we are increasingly putting a higher value on the food we give our families.

The popularity of ready meals and ready to cook products is also on the rise. The ability of poultry to provide healthy and convenient meals is a key factor in this development. Over 30% of poultry products now sold fall into these categories.

Trade

As a trading nation the UK relies on imports and exports, and poultry plays an important role. During 2007 the UK imported 560,000 tonnes of poultry, and exported 310,000 tonnes.

As consumers we have a wide variety of choice of the poultry we eat. We buy a lot of premium cuts, particularly breast fillets, and as a result other cuts from the same carcase can be less popular. Fortunately, other countries have different food requirements and for them legs, or thigh, or drumsticks may be the premium cut. Therefore we can trade our excess to their market, and bring some of their poultry meat into our market.

Our trading partners are mainly EC countries with 71% of imports and 89% of exports coming from or going to Member States. However, there are significant amounts of poultry meat imported from countries around the world such as Thailand, and Brazil.

Every year poultry imports are worth around £1 billion and poultry exports are worth nearly £400 million to the UK economy.