BUSINESS NEWS - The South African poultry industry – the second-largest agricultural sub-sector contributing to the economy – has grown to be a R59 billion industry over the last three years, thanks mainly to additional investments made by the industry’s participants.
Poultry industry invested R1.8 billion into growth in 2022
At a State of the Poultry Industry Roundtable on Wednesday, the South African Poultry Association (Sapa) revealed that the industry invested R1.8 billion into growth in 2022 – surpassing initial plans set out in the Poultry Sector Masterplan (PSMP) to invest R1.5 billion by the end of last year.
It added that the industry plans to keep this momentum going by investing an additional R600 million by the end of 2024.
Sapa reports that the industry responsible for producing one of South Africa’s most consumed meat proteins also managed to create 1 900 of the 3 600 new jobs it set out to create between 2019 and 2022, while a further 2 000 new jobs are believed to have been created throughout the value chain during the period.
Industry in distress
Despite notable progress in the past year, the short to medium-term outlooks suggest that the industry is in for tough times, according to Sapa CEO Izaak Breitenbach.
“The challenges that we had were Covid-19: the pandemic had a material impact on this industry. We also had a highly pathogenic avian influenza and we culled three million birds – not our broiler birds, not the slaughter birds, but the birds that we use for breeding.”
“We also had extremely high raw material prices; these prices are at record levels and that impacts the industry negatively,” Breitenbach added.
