David Salkeld, the recently appointed chief executive of Grampian, is losing no time in shaking up leaders in the poultry sector.
In one of his first public performances since taking over, he launched a sharp attack on the lack of imagination in British poultry promotion.
Too much was tied to price promotions like bogofs, he said: “The whole market is tied to deals which may be attractive to consumers but fail to do anything for the rest of the industry,” he told the NFU autumn poultry conference.
He urged producers to visit supermarkets to find out how boring shelf presentations were.
Against a meat industry average discount of 25-30%, up
to 70% of the market was price-dependent and this was continuing to rise, he warned.
Producers should aim for grey power or other value-added sectors already exploited by fast food promoters such as KFC.
Britain produced some of the best chicken in the world but displayed little talent in promoting the concept. There was the potential to earn market differentials of up to 100%.
Help could come through the new British Chicken Marketing system, initially pump-primed by money from Grampian and PD Hook Hatcheries, but eventually funded from across the industry.
Initially a levy of 25p per 100 birds was proposed, but this has been reduced to 10p per 100. With a national flock of around eight million poultry, this could bring in a potential £800,000 a year to help British chicken.
Nigel Dickie, MD of Counsel, the PR company charged with raising the UK industry profile, warned about the scale of low cost imports from countries such as Brazil and Thailand.
“Around half of all chicken breastmeat consumed in the UK is now imported,” he said.
Vic Robertson
In one of his first public performances since taking over, he launched a sharp attack on the lack of imagination in British poultry promotion.
Too much was tied to price promotions like bogofs, he said: “The whole market is tied to deals which may be attractive to consumers but fail to do anything for the rest of the industry,” he told the NFU autumn poultry conference.
He urged producers to visit supermarkets to find out how boring shelf presentations were.
Against a meat industry average discount of 25-30%, up
to 70% of the market was price-dependent and this was continuing to rise, he warned.
Producers should aim for grey power or other value-added sectors already exploited by fast food promoters such as KFC.
Britain produced some of the best chicken in the world but displayed little talent in promoting the concept. There was the potential to earn market differentials of up to 100%.
Help could come through the new British Chicken Marketing system, initially pump-primed by money from Grampian and PD Hook Hatcheries, but eventually funded from across the industry.
Initially a levy of 25p per 100 birds was proposed, but this has been reduced to 10p per 100. With a national flock of around eight million poultry, this could bring in a potential £800,000 a year to help British chicken.
Nigel Dickie, MD of Counsel, the PR company charged with raising the UK industry profile, warned about the scale of low cost imports from countries such as Brazil and Thailand.
“Around half of all chicken breastmeat consumed in the UK is now imported,” he said.
Vic Robertson
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