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PART 1: Hendrix Genetics/Joice & Hill talk market developments, genetic advancement and white layers
9 Plays2 months ago
In the first of a two-part episode of the Sustainability Hub podcast, Tom is joined by two respected poultry experts from Hendrix Genetics, a leading company involved in multi-species animal breeding.
In their most recent projections, Rabobank forecast demand for poultry and eggs to grow by 22% in the next decade, outpacing every other livestock sector.
From Teun van de Braak and Nick Bailey, we learn how Hendrix Genetics is rising to this challenge.
With 30 years’ experience between them, Nick and Teun share their valuable insights into the pace of change in markets domestic and abroad.
We hear how developments in animal welfare bring with them occasional conflicts, compromises or unintended consequences.
A leading geneticist, Teun is now responsible the director responsible for technical services and customer support across the Hendrix Genetics world market.
A frequent contributor to conferences and knowledge sharing events across the globe, Teun has an incredible knowledge matched only by his enthusiastic communication.
Nick has led UK distributor Joice & Hill since 2008, and business is thriving under his leadership as Nick and team balance the needs of a diverse customer portfolio with the volatile market demands resulting from the anticipated move away from intensive production and the growing presence of white eggs on shelves.
Amongst such turbulent times, Nick explains that Joice & Hill have also deployed a major environmental initiative, electrifying the company fleet and investing heavily in renewable energy, managing to reduce emissions by 8% during a period of double-digit growth.
In a fast-paced conversation, the trio discuss everything from market segmentation, the undervalued pullet rearing phase, in-ovo sexing and, as a signpost to the second part of the podcast, the correlation between the meat industry’s slower-growing chicken transition and the layer sector’s adoption of white eggs.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship Acknowledgment
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Sustainability Hub podcast brought to you by Poultry Network.
00:00:08
Speaker
And firstly, a thank you to our sponsors, to Alltech, to Alanco, the UK Agritech Centre, to Trowel Nutrition, and
00:00:17
Speaker
to Moy Park and to Aviagen.
Guest Introductions and Scene Setting
00:00:20
Speaker
Today I'm joined by another genetics titan, Hendrix Genetics, and their UK distributor, Joyce and Hill.
00:00:28
Speaker
And we're going to introduce Turn and Nick in a moment.
00:00:32
Speaker
We've got a change of scene today.
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Speaker
We're in Peterborough, so it's an away match.
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Speaker
We've left our spiritual home of Chester.
00:00:39
Speaker
And we're going to do things a little differently today.
00:00:41
Speaker
We're going to split today's episode into two parts.
00:00:45
Speaker
starting with the global picture in respect of layer breeding and what sustainability means in the in the layer breeding sector and then we're going to have a deep dive into the world of white birds, white eggs, debunk a few myths and see where that discussion takes
Focus on Global Layer Breeding and Sustainability
00:01:02
Speaker
us.
00:01:02
Speaker
So this is part one.
00:01:05
Speaker
Firstly guests please do introduce yourselves.
00:01:08
Speaker
Teun.
00:01:09
Speaker
Okay, thank you for the invitation.
00:01:12
Speaker
It's a pleasure to be here.
00:01:14
Speaker
I'm Teun van der Braak, working for Henrik Genetics as the Global Technical Director for the Business Unit for the Laying Hands.
00:01:21
Speaker
Background in genetics, so that's what I will also be talking about during the podcast.
00:01:26
Speaker
So, pleasure to be here and looking forward.
00:01:30
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:01:31
Speaker
And Nick?
00:01:32
Speaker
Yes, I'm Nick Bailey, I'm the general manager of Joyston Hill, which is the layer distribution arm of Hendrix Genetics in the UK.
00:01:40
Speaker
So we supply around one third of the UK's laying hen population.
00:01:45
Speaker
We're hatched here at Peterborough.
00:01:48
Speaker
So my background is in biochemistry, but I came via a fairly circuitous route to the poultry industry.
00:01:57
Speaker
I was very interested in nature conservation and tried to start a career in that.
00:02:02
Speaker
And that was very difficult to get funding.
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Speaker
And so I do have quite a sustainable background in that.
00:02:09
Speaker
But things went sideways and I ended up in the poultry industry.
00:02:12
Speaker
And once it's got you, there's no letting go, is there?
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Speaker
There's no letting go.
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Speaker
That's what I found anyway.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:02:17
Speaker
It's like a hen's grasp.
00:02:18
Speaker
It's very...
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Speaker
Determined.
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Speaker
Determined.
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Speaker
You're going nowhere.
00:02:22
Speaker
And so for us, sustainability, massive, massive topic, means all
Genetics and Market-Driven Breeding Transparency
00:02:26
Speaker
sorts of things.
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Speaker
We'll come on to that in a moment.
00:02:28
Speaker
But yeah, the world of breeding, I described you earlier as a titan.
00:02:33
Speaker
I don't think that's an exaggeration.
00:02:35
Speaker
Really, there's, if I'm not mistaken, two main players in the world of poultry breeding globally.
00:02:42
Speaker
And Hendrix, you know, one half of that pair.
00:02:48
Speaker
When we talk about genetics, when we talk about breeding, Tern, can you just give us a very simple sort of background as to the process, what's involved?
00:02:55
Speaker
So to the process itself, well, the world of genetics, many people always think it's a very secret world.
00:03:01
Speaker
And that is something we try to open up our window blinds a little bit to make it more transparent in what we do today.
00:03:09
Speaker
So this podcast also helps in contributing to the transparency of our sector because...
00:03:14
Speaker
In the end, the only thing what we are doing at the moment is trying to identify the best animals in the world of in our pure lion populations and trying to identify the best animals and do selective mating.
00:03:29
Speaker
So really mating the best male to the best females and to more or less safeguard that their offspring is better than the current generation to make sure that every time when we do a selection,
00:03:41
Speaker
We are improving livestock to the desired direction of the market.
00:03:48
Speaker
It's not our direction.
00:03:49
Speaker
No, the market decides on the direction.
00:03:51
Speaker
And that's a really important point because, you know, what we're creating here is not our own flight of fancy.
00:03:57
Speaker
There's a massive driving priority, which is, you know, meet the global demand for food, for protein, for animal protein.
00:04:10
Speaker
and do so with as efficient use of limited resources as possible.
00:04:16
Speaker
You quoted some statistics to us before we started recording.
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Hit us with the numbers.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:04:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:22
Speaker
Well, if you look at the latest Rabobank reports, they predict that in the coming 10 years, the global ag industry will grow by 21, 22%.
00:04:32
Speaker
So that means if you look at the figures, that's close to 1 billion extra laying hands that need to be there in order to serve the planet, serve the needs of the human population.
00:04:46
Speaker
In a decade.
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Speaker
In a decade, in the coming decade.
00:04:48
Speaker
So that is the growth is absolutely
Egg Industry Growth and Sustainable Practices
00:04:50
Speaker
significant.
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Speaker
spectacular.
00:04:51
Speaker
But also, if you look back to the past, the growth has also been there.
00:04:55
Speaker
So we are every day in our day-to-day challenges.
00:04:59
Speaker
We need to address all the questions related to the theme.
00:05:04
Speaker
There is a growing demand, but the only way how we can supply the demand is by doing it in a sustainable way.
00:05:10
Speaker
And the sustainable way is there's a lot of different stakes around sustainability, as you know, of course.
00:05:16
Speaker
Yes, we are here in Western Europe.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yes, we are a Western European headquarter with our operations headquarters in the Netherlands.
00:05:25
Speaker
So animal welfare is definitely there.
00:05:27
Speaker
But...
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We operate globally.
00:05:30
Speaker
So it's also a lot about dealing with the limited resources that we have available today.
00:05:36
Speaker
So we're also definitely working on improving feed conversion ratios, trying to breed chickens that can cope with, so to say, lesser quality diets, more byproducts in diets, et cetera, et cetera.
00:05:49
Speaker
But also we need to acknowledge the fact that
00:05:52
Speaker
there are global differences, there are regional differences in the way that we keep, treat, or animals, in our case, then laying hands.
00:06:01
Speaker
And that also relates back to the fact that there's different pressures around the globe.
00:06:07
Speaker
So, for example, already here in Western Europe, the disease prevalence is very much depending on the poultry density of the region.
00:06:18
Speaker
So, for example, the Scandinavian vaccination schemes look complex
00:06:21
Speaker
Completely different.
00:06:22
Speaker
Barely any vaccine, is that right?
00:06:24
Speaker
Newcastle disease and that's it?
00:06:26
Speaker
Exactly.
00:06:26
Speaker
Well, a little bit more, but there's huge differences already here on this part of the continent.
00:06:32
Speaker
So if I'm right, that limits the age at which we can sort of stimulate lei and start to produce eggs because we've got to prepare a bird for a very complex environment and therefore we take longer to do that.
00:06:48
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:06:49
Speaker
It takes longer to do so because during the past decades, we've also shifted our breeding mentality from going towards preparing chickens as quick as we can in order to produce the first eggs and as much eggs as possible.
00:07:05
Speaker
And at the moment, it's really about the whole idea is about making sure that you're breeding a very robust animal.
00:07:11
Speaker
that is able to stay in a good condition as long as possible.
00:07:16
Speaker
Because if she's able to stay in a very good, healthy condition, she will be much better able to produce more first quality acts.
00:07:23
Speaker
And in the end, wherever we are around the globe, every customer we are asking, what is it that
Breed Differences and Market Suitability
00:07:30
Speaker
you want?
00:07:30
Speaker
What do you request from us?
00:07:34
Speaker
99% of the farmers will say, I'd like to get more first quality eggs hen housed out of my chickens.
00:07:40
Speaker
These are things that would benefit all markets.
00:07:43
Speaker
All markets.
00:07:44
Speaker
All markets are asking for feed conversion, which means less resources to produce those eggs.
00:07:50
Speaker
The longer cycles benefit the welfare benefits in Western Europe, but also farmers in Africa or Asia or
00:07:58
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:07:59
Speaker
So to that point, sorry, I was going to ask, does that then infer that there's actually not that much difference between, you know, the birds, the breeds, if I use the word products, you know, the different lines available in the UK versus the rest of Western Europe versus, you know, the States or Asia, are they all using pretty well the same...
00:08:24
Speaker
So few strains of bird or is there market segmentation where you've got, you know, a bird that has been more acutely developed for more precisely developed for our climate, for European climate?
00:08:39
Speaker
Well, there's two answers.
00:08:41
Speaker
So there is, of course, the global solution that there's one bird, one breed or multiple breeds that fit multiple markets, multiple breeds.
00:08:52
Speaker
There are some regional differences where we really have unique breeds.
00:08:55
Speaker
For example, here, the UK is one of those examples, which is the part of the higher segment, the top niche of the market.
00:09:03
Speaker
demanding a special chicken in terms, but mostly in terms of egg characteristics and the way the egg looks like, the way it tastes, the way it breaks, but especially the eggshell color itself.
00:09:16
Speaker
So that is a very unique market.
00:09:17
Speaker
But if you look on the global scale, then it's indeed a limited number of breeds that is able to fulfill to the extent
00:09:26
Speaker
market requirements.
00:09:27
Speaker
It fulfills the requirements of those markets with the way that we have bred and selected the chickens.
00:09:33
Speaker
Because what I said before, the goal for most egg producers is the same.
00:09:37
Speaker
They would like to get a sustainable income out of their business.
00:09:40
Speaker
And that is, in the end, selling eggs.
00:09:44
Speaker
And the more eggs they can sell from their livestock, the more revenue, the better position they have.
00:09:51
Speaker
And in the end, as long as the farmers can make money in our sector, all the players in the market can get a small share of the value added to the market as well.
00:10:01
Speaker
And because I don't think it really lies with the consumer.
00:10:04
Speaker
The consumer is relatively ignorant about the whole production process.
00:10:09
Speaker
We see it all around the globe.
00:10:11
Speaker
The majority of the consumer will never see the chicken itself.
00:10:14
Speaker
They're either not interested in it, they have no idea.
00:10:19
Speaker
They just want convenience food.
00:10:21
Speaker
They want to buy it in the supermarket.
00:10:23
Speaker
While the whole process behind it, there's a massive sector.
00:10:26
Speaker
The egg industry, the global egg industry, it's a massive industry behind it.
00:10:30
Speaker
where we are thousands, well, millions of people day in, day out trying to do their utmost to make sure there's, I would say, the highest quality of animal protein available to the table of the people.
00:10:41
Speaker
It's not just genetics.
00:10:42
Speaker
It's not just genetics.
00:10:43
Speaker
It's animal health.
00:10:44
Speaker
It's animal health.
00:10:46
Speaker
What we always say, it's the phenotype.
00:10:50
Speaker
what we, I guess most of the owners know what a phenotype is, but otherwise that's what you, yeah, the number of eggs.
00:10:57
Speaker
I think you're normally talking to other people too, because I sat in this chair.
00:11:00
Speaker
Just for those of us that aren't familiar with what you mean precisely.
00:11:03
Speaker
Okay, so phenotyping is more or less all the data that you are registering from your flocks.
00:11:08
Speaker
So the number of eggs they produce, the quality of the eggs, the mortalities, feed consumption, water intake, feather cover, etc, etc.
00:11:16
Speaker
Those are all phenotypes.
00:11:17
Speaker
And
00:11:18
Speaker
In the end, the characteristics of the breed.
00:11:21
Speaker
And that is always an interaction between the genetics and the role of the environment.
00:11:26
Speaker
So as Nick already mentioned, the management, the vaccination, and especially the rearing in these days is absolutely crucial in the success of a laying hen during her lifetime.
00:11:39
Speaker
Rearing absolutely plays a major, major role in that whole process, whether producers can be successful, yes or no.
00:11:46
Speaker
So rearing is super important.
00:11:48
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:11:48
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:11:49
Speaker
We need to see really today rearing as an investment and not as a cost.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yes, money is getting out of it, but it is an investment phase.
00:11:57
Speaker
And I always say you can compare the rearing of a laying hand in weeks with the growing up of men, humans, but then in years.
00:12:10
Speaker
And it's absolutely, we need those 17, 18, 19, 20 weeks, whatever it is.
00:12:15
Speaker
There is variation around the globe related to that.
00:12:18
Speaker
And also depending on the housing system.
00:12:20
Speaker
Of course, for cage-free, you need to invest more time in your rearing because it is really the training period of the bird.
00:12:28
Speaker
Especially as we keep hands longer as well.
00:12:30
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:12:31
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:12:32
Speaker
So cut to the chase.
00:12:34
Speaker
UK, most of our listeners will be in the UK.
00:12:38
Speaker
And you guys, both of you travel extensively with Hendrix, the parent company.
00:12:43
Speaker
And you'll attend a lot of events with a lot of people.
00:12:46
Speaker
Do you think the UK does a good job of rearing generally or are we playing catch up?
00:12:51
Speaker
There needs to be more investment, I think, in multi-level rearing, particularly as we get more multi-level farms.
00:12:57
Speaker
But in general, the attention to detail in rearing in the UK has drastically improved over the last few years.
00:13:02
Speaker
And if we were incredibly diplomatic, and I realise as I ask the question, that's akin to me saying to you to shop your customers.
00:13:10
Speaker
So apologies to anybody rearing birds and the inference of my question.
00:13:15
Speaker
But if I said, who does it really, really well, you know, when you...
00:13:20
Speaker
travel around, who do you see has the best rearing systems or the right approach?
00:13:26
Speaker
I think if you look at what's happened in the Netherlands that moved to multi-tier free-range and aviary systems already a long time ago,
00:13:36
Speaker
they invested more time in getting the rearing systems right for those laying systems.
00:13:43
Speaker
And we've had a transition in the UK towards free range.
00:13:46
Speaker
And at the start, that was mainly what we call flat deck systems, which is just a simple slatted deck with some nest boxes on top.
00:13:54
Speaker
And now we're in a situation where many of the new
00:13:57
Speaker
free range houses that are being built are on multiple levels which is great
Bird Behavior and Genetic Selection
00:14:01
Speaker
for the bird they move around and they they can get up on perches and move away from birds they don't like and and all the rest of the things but that does require some training in the in the rearing period and and Turner is exactly right to say that it's an investment period it's not it's not a cost period
00:14:18
Speaker
If the ambition is to match the rearing shed with the laying shed, then that investment that you're talking about in the laying shed has then got to be mirrored back down the track in the rearing farm.
00:14:29
Speaker
My experience of working in the commercial egg industry...
00:14:36
Speaker
and having conversations with the laying hen farm owners and managers is that they're very focused on their feed price.
00:14:48
Speaker
They're very focused on egg yield.
00:14:52
Speaker
They are highly motivated to spend less on a pullet, but they don't put so much attention into exactly how that bird has been
00:15:04
Speaker
reared or or you know the conditions of the rearing shed versus the the laying shed and the primary concern um not everybody but many of them would just simply be could they save a few pennies on the on the bird that arrives that's is that just my experience or is that kind of
00:15:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think the whole environment's cost-price focus, that's for sure.
00:15:25
Speaker
It's been a very competitive industry over the years.
00:15:29
Speaker
People stand or fall on what they spend on cost of production.
00:15:34
Speaker
And of course, it's easy to shave a few pence off on your purchases.
00:15:38
Speaker
It's less easy to determine what the value of the extra spend that you make on those purchases, whether it's feed or whether it's the pullet that people are buying.
00:15:48
Speaker
It's much more difficult to
00:15:50
Speaker
ascribe success in the laying period to spending a bit more on the rearing feed and the training equipment in the rearing period.
00:16:02
Speaker
And I think this is where we want to talk a little bit about differences between white and brown birds because
00:16:08
Speaker
Certainly our experience is with white birds, especially some white birds, move into new situations and new laying quarters much easier than some brown birds do.
00:16:23
Speaker
And so we're seeing things like floor eggs being much lower with some brands of white egg layer than others.
00:16:35
Speaker
And I think that's an important point.
00:16:36
Speaker
And we spoke earlier about
00:16:38
Speaker
meeting demands around the world and the breeds that Hendrix Genetics breed.
00:16:45
Speaker
In brown, there's much less variation between the different strains of brown.
00:16:50
Speaker
In white, we see quite a lot of genetic variation and we got some white
00:16:55
Speaker
egg layers that are extremely efficient in intensive systems, but we wouldn't put them on the Western European systems of free range and aviary.
00:17:06
Speaker
But we do have some white lines that are extremely well adapted, much by chance as anything else to the kind of systems that we're now seeing prevalent in Western Europe and increasingly in the US.
Impact of Genomics on Breeding
00:17:21
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:17:22
Speaker
And well, part of it is luck.
00:17:24
Speaker
Part of it is a very balanced breeding program behind it with a very intensive field testing program behind it.
00:17:30
Speaker
So that intensive field testing where we really have been selecting already for decades for behavior of the birds and then especially more related towards
00:17:38
Speaker
the aggressive behavior, so selecting the social families that will maintain good quality egg production.
00:17:45
Speaker
Those are the families that you want to select and the ones that are irritating each other, the cannibalistic families, the aggressors, we try to select them out as much as we can.
00:17:55
Speaker
And that is a very well, it has been not a revolution, but evolution and genetic evolution.
00:18:01
Speaker
It has been a process of several decades.
00:18:03
Speaker
And still today, as we speak, we are testing
00:18:06
Speaker
All over the globe, we are testing birds under field circumstances and to make sure to select and identify those best families.
00:18:15
Speaker
Has that testing changed over time as we go?
00:18:18
Speaker
Because I think about Europe, Europe's gone from being largely...
00:18:24
Speaker
And when we say intensive, we mean probably traditional cages then replaced by enriched cages or perhaps indoor, cage-free, aviary barn, you know, large scale populations to more, depending on market level.
00:18:40
Speaker
Differences are obviously going to apply, but UK hugely dominated by free range, but organic as well in there.
00:18:49
Speaker
Does that transition through the different systems of production also bring with it a transition in bird in breed that's better equipped for those alternative systems?
00:19:01
Speaker
Or are we still using market by market the same breeds we always have, just trying to apply a different system?
00:19:06
Speaker
Well, you definitely see differences between breeds, and especially towards behavior in a cage versus cage-free environment.
00:19:14
Speaker
Most often we would say, okay, almost every bird can cope in a cage house system, but that is not the case for the cage-free housing.
00:19:22
Speaker
So there you definitely see that the market is evolving into take-up of different breeds.
00:19:29
Speaker
So, for example, there are some breeds that are...
00:19:33
Speaker
quite dominant here in the European continent and nowadays also in the North American continent and less in the markets where there's still a lot of conventional cage housing.
00:19:43
Speaker
So definitely there is a breed housing system type of interaction that you see some works, some don't work, and the ones that don't work you really
00:19:54
Speaker
don't try to get into those systems again because nobody wants to see naked birds, you know.
00:19:58
Speaker
So that is definitely something by testing, especially via intensive field testing, we're also trying to do that.
00:20:05
Speaker
So that intensive field testing, as you said, is not longer only in small groups, conventional cage housing.
00:20:12
Speaker
Nowadays, it's also in aviary housing, although that comes with its challenges.
00:20:17
Speaker
It's group house testing for chickens.
00:20:21
Speaker
It's still because of...
00:20:22
Speaker
the size of the business.
00:20:25
Speaker
We're not talking about only 100 or 200 chickens on the total business.
00:20:29
Speaker
No, we're talking about 16,000, 32,000, 64,000 bird operations that we're talking about.
00:20:37
Speaker
And that's why I'm always, from genetics point of view, very jealous on the colleagues working on dairy selection.
00:20:45
Speaker
And so dairy breeders
00:20:48
Speaker
they have a big animal where they can put a lot of sensors on.
00:20:52
Speaker
And nowadays, for the vast majority of all dairy cows, for example, in the Netherlands, they all have the sensors.
00:20:56
Speaker
They are all being milked with robots as well.
00:20:59
Speaker
So you know exactly from every cow how much milk she's giving, even how many times she's chewing.
00:21:05
Speaker
Also the moment when she comes into heat.
00:21:07
Speaker
Everything is known now because of the sensor technology.
00:21:10
Speaker
But it works when you have a big animal under a roof where you only have 200 candidates, for example.
00:21:16
Speaker
For us, we are talking indeed about the complex farms with 10,000, 20,000 birds.
00:21:22
Speaker
And then RFID testing, it's possible, but it comes with the challenges.
00:21:28
Speaker
And it strikes me that there must be some tension because you go back, certainly in my early days in my egg career, I remember genomics being an incredible development and accelerating the speed at which you could identify genomics.
00:21:44
Speaker
you know, those phenotypes or the genetic characteristics that were preferred.
00:21:49
Speaker
And, you know, no longer had to run trial flocks for, you know, full life cycles to be able to make selections.
00:21:59
Speaker
Whereas now from what you're saying, I would interpret that
00:22:03
Speaker
That accelerated choice is great from a scientific point of view, but it denies you that opportunity to actually look at the social and behavioural aspects that are now as equally important as productivity or some of the other things that we might have looked for in earlier selection processes.
00:22:21
Speaker
It does depend on the traits you're looking for, and particularly on the male lines, that's really helping because...
00:22:27
Speaker
how do you evaluate the egg laying performance of a male is you have to wait for the offspring, his offspring to come into maturity and their laying cycle before you can attribute traits to him.
00:22:41
Speaker
If you know that that male is carrying a certain genomic pattern that is correlating strongly with things like shell strength, breaking shell strength or egg color that you're after, then you can already make a preselection on those males.
00:22:56
Speaker
And that's
00:22:57
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:59
Speaker
But indeed, well, genomics, it only works when you do and continue your full phenotyping of all your birds.
00:23:05
Speaker
So it's not reducing any workload on our breeding farms or in the field testing farms because genomics, genotyping only works when you have valid phenotypes next to it because every time you need to validate...
00:23:18
Speaker
the whole SNP chip set.
00:23:19
Speaker
So that is an addition to the breeding program.
00:23:23
Speaker
But indeed, the good news is, and that's the benefit of running a laying hen breeding program, is genomic really has an advantage for traits that are...
00:23:35
Speaker
later life traits because you can do an earlier more accurate prediction about the performance of the bird later on in life and that is why it's contributing much more in the laying hand industry compared to in the broiler industry because in the broiler sector within six weeks you already have all your data available for us it still takes today three weeks before we have all the genomic information back after we took the dna samples and sent them to the lab so it it's
00:24:00
Speaker
But on a life cycle of 100 weeks, three weeks is not even significant.
00:24:05
Speaker
So it therefore really definitely contributes greatly.
00:24:08
Speaker
And especially as Nick told for the males, as the information indeed they give themselves is limited.
00:24:15
Speaker
You need to wait for their offspring.
00:24:17
Speaker
And especially if we want to look at the traits at 100 weeks or 120 weeks of age,
00:24:22
Speaker
That means that the male at that moment in time is 130 or 150 weeks of age.
Market Shift from Brown to White Eggs
00:24:28
Speaker
So those are quite old, grumpy men.
00:24:31
Speaker
Imagine a three-year-old Leghorn male or Rhode Island male.
00:24:35
Speaker
Those are quite grumpy men.
00:24:37
Speaker
And from a genetic, when you look at the genetic formula...
00:24:40
Speaker
you would like to use your parents for the next generation as quickly as you can, because therefore you can make faster genetic progress through the chain.
00:24:50
Speaker
But it only works when you are selecting the right candidates.
00:24:54
Speaker
So that combination of phenotyping in combination with the genotyping, that really is absolutely key.
00:25:01
Speaker
And indeed, with some of the social traits, it's
00:25:05
Speaker
relatively low heritability.
00:25:06
Speaker
So behavior is one of them.
00:25:09
Speaker
So it's more difficult for us because the variation, the genetic variation is there for something also limited.
00:25:16
Speaker
There's only so much you can do from a breeding point of view.
00:25:19
Speaker
And that's always, well, I think it's in every sector where you are.
00:25:24
Speaker
So whether you are in feed, people tend to put the claim towards
00:25:28
Speaker
the feed supplier.
00:25:29
Speaker
We are in genetics supplying quality day-old chicks.
00:25:33
Speaker
When there's something with the chicken, they also try to blame the genetics, of course.
00:25:37
Speaker
But...
00:25:39
Speaker
And many behavioral traits, it's not always the genetics to blame because it's mostly the result of all the environmental interactions with it.
00:25:50
Speaker
So we only play a minor role in some of those characteristics.
00:25:56
Speaker
So, Tommy, you were asking earlier about as we've changed production systems in Western Europe towards more extensive systems, towards free range and organic and multi-tier aviary systems, barn systems.
00:26:11
Speaker
Has that changed the way we breed?
00:26:13
Speaker
For sure.
00:26:13
Speaker
We are using more floor-based testing than before.
00:26:18
Speaker
Some of the things we've done in the past, such as the field-based testing where you're breeding for
00:26:24
Speaker
general livability of lines in field type environments are playing out really, really well, especially the length of the time we've been testing those birds to 100 weeks in field type situations.
00:26:37
Speaker
And that's really played out well for the lines in these more challenging, extensive systems we have in Western Europe.
00:26:44
Speaker
But as we look around Western Europe, we've also changed which breeds of chicken and particularly that there's a move from brown to white egg layers.
00:26:53
Speaker
And the white egg layers by happy chance seem to be more coping with those systems a lot better than brown.
00:27:01
Speaker
And if you look across different markets, the Netherlands is a prime example.
00:27:05
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:27:06
Speaker
When they switched voluntarily with a van at retail level in 2005, they switched from
00:27:14
Speaker
A lot of farmers switch from brown egg layers to white egg layers simply because the white egg layer was much easier to manage in those types of systems.
00:27:23
Speaker
And that's something that people don't talk about is also what is it like for the farmer.
00:27:27
Speaker
It's not just about, you know, the metrics of farming, how many eggs we got out of each bird, what the feed conversion is.
00:27:34
Speaker
It's also for the farmer in going into those barns every day.
00:27:37
Speaker
The experience of farming.
00:27:38
Speaker
The experience.
00:27:39
Speaker
The joy in your day-to-day job.
00:27:41
Speaker
And especially the breed choice contributes to the joy in your day-to-day job.
00:27:46
Speaker
And that is exactly the same for those farmers and producers all around the globe.
00:27:52
Speaker
But the Netherlands is an interesting case in point.
00:27:54
Speaker
And, you know, I think I understand that the chicken meat industry in the Netherlands equally have seen a very rapid transition from conventional to slower growing birds, which suggests that, you know, in those supply chains,
00:28:11
Speaker
agriculture through to processing and into retail, there is sufficient understanding, acknowledgement and respect of the value of each of the participants in each parts of the chain to take account of preferences, to allow change to happen and to facilitate change.
00:28:29
Speaker
Whereas I think I interpret our market in the UK as being quite resistant to that change, quite concerned about the effects of competition, particularly barriers, hurdles to making those changes.
00:28:46
Speaker
But what about the rest of the countries that also have seen a transition from one country
00:28:53
Speaker
predominant colour of egg to another.
00:28:56
Speaker
Is that driven by farmers?
00:28:57
Speaker
Is that driven by processes?
00:28:58
Speaker
Is that driven by a consumer?
00:29:01
Speaker
And with what motive?
00:29:03
Speaker
Okay, yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
So what we see
Sustainability in Egg Production
00:29:05
Speaker
around the globe and especially well in the Western world where there's most of the pressure on the producers, on the market, and especially related to the theme of this podcast, the sustainability hub.
00:29:17
Speaker
So trying to produce eggs in a sustainable way so that it's respecting the welfare of the bird, respecting the planet that we live on.
00:29:26
Speaker
So with the limited resources that we have,
00:29:29
Speaker
responsible use of antibiotics and so on and so on and so on.
00:29:33
Speaker
What we clearly see there is that in some of those markets, the consumers are more willing to listen and to adopt the stories that the sector and the supermarkets are telling to them.
00:29:45
Speaker
And it's a matter about telling the truth, explaining the true story about what is the cost of production?
00:29:51
Speaker
What is the impact of a decision that you make on the carbon footprint, for example?
00:29:57
Speaker
Some decisions tend to be more welfare-driven, especially here in the West.
00:30:01
Speaker
So, for example, the slow-growing, the move towards the slow-growing broiler, the better live one-star chicken in the Netherlands.
00:30:08
Speaker
If you look at the whole sustainability aspects, it only ticks the boxes on animal health and animal welfare.
00:30:15
Speaker
it doesn't tick the boxes on carbon footprint, on efficient use of resources.
00:30:21
Speaker
There it ticks the box very negatively.
00:30:25
Speaker
20% larger carbon footprint, for example, for the slower growing broiler.
00:30:29
Speaker
But the good thing about that is the consumer is willing to pay the extra price.
00:30:36
Speaker
And prices in the Netherlands, for example, they went up for 5 euros a kilogram of breast fillet at the moment as we speak.
00:30:43
Speaker
13 to 15 euros a kilo, while the cost of production is just 75 cents per kilo extra.
00:30:50
Speaker
So in the end, the biggest winner is the supermarket in that case.
00:30:54
Speaker
And that is the typical Dutch example where the supermarkets are driving the change based on the pressure of the NGOs.
00:31:02
Speaker
especially in the case of the Better Life chicken, it was the pressure of wakadeer that came with the term plofkip or explosion chicken.
00:31:11
Speaker
Exploding chicken, yes, exactly.
00:31:13
Speaker
And by naming, shaming, framing, they were so successful.
00:31:16
Speaker
And it were awful campaigns, absolutely awful.
00:31:19
Speaker
But it also showed that the sector...
00:31:22
Speaker
didn't have an answer.
00:31:23
Speaker
It wasn't showing.
00:31:24
Speaker
It didn't come up with their story.
00:31:28
Speaker
So that is also a problem that we face around the globe.
00:31:31
Speaker
We, as producers of high-quality animal protein, we are not well equipped to show our story, to tell our story.
00:31:42
Speaker
And while there is beautiful stories to tell...
00:31:45
Speaker
It's a real shame.
00:31:46
Speaker
I think it's a real shame in that particular instance.
00:31:50
Speaker
It's a very narrow take on sustainability and entirely focused on
00:31:55
Speaker
on a perceived gain in animal welfare without considering many other things such as the carbon footprint of the food we're producing, such as the cost of food for working families to be able to afford to feed valuable protein to their kids.
00:32:11
Speaker
And that's not considered.
00:32:13
Speaker
It's all anthropomorphic judgment on the life of a farm animal.
00:32:20
Speaker
Yeah, arguably sort of bowing to some pressures from some vocal people in certain places.
00:32:26
Speaker
And, you know, we're living in extraordinarily fast changing times where some of those sorts of ways of thinking and decisions are starting to be more and more openly challenged and some people being very...
00:32:41
Speaker
radical in terms of the reversal of that sort of general direction.
00:32:45
Speaker
All debates have become much more polarized and less nuanced.
00:32:49
Speaker
And I think that's the danger of the society we live in with social media, etc.
00:32:55
Speaker
It's very easy to make snap judgments about things.
00:32:58
Speaker
And in life, everything's much more nuanced than it first appears.
00:33:02
Speaker
I'm very nervous of potentially slipping in to try to put the world to rights with opinions on, well, certainly my opinions on social media and things like that.
00:33:11
Speaker
Don't do it.
00:33:12
Speaker
But I want to go back to Plofkip, to the slower growing chicken movement, European, UK.
00:33:20
Speaker
I think they're both in transition or...
00:33:24
Speaker
European further ahead than UK.
00:33:26
Speaker
UK absolutely in transition.
00:33:28
Speaker
And the question is, well, where's our food going to come from?
00:33:31
Speaker
You know, how much will be imported?
00:33:33
Speaker
As Nick rightly says, what are the compromises?
00:33:37
Speaker
Because it strikes me that actually in the egg industry,
00:33:40
Speaker
Is the transition in our market from a brown egg market to a more balanced or toward a whiter egg shell market our equivalent to the slower growing chicken movement?
00:33:57
Speaker
And if it is, do we not have the ultimate message?
00:34:01
Speaker
Because we don't have in the laying sector,
00:34:06
Speaker
and this is the poultry network, so we're friends of the meat sector as well, but in the laying sector, those compromises do not exist.
00:34:14
Speaker
Actually, it's a win-win.
00:34:15
Speaker
It's a win-win-win.
00:34:16
Speaker
It's ticking all the sustainability boxes, the white laying.
00:34:21
Speaker
And all the data shows it today as well.
00:34:24
Speaker
So there is more than 6% lower carbon footprint of a white egg compared to a brown egg.
00:34:30
Speaker
So the data, it's all there.
00:34:31
Speaker
So it's proven there.
00:34:33
Speaker
But it's about, in the end, an industry can only be viable and sustainable.
00:34:39
Speaker
It's also the consumer is willing to adopt and willing to pay the value
Breeding Strategies and Alternative Feeds
00:34:46
Speaker
for it.
00:34:46
Speaker
And in the case of white eggs, we've seen it with our own eyes.
00:34:50
Speaker
I've seen it in the Netherlands, for example, where they started to introduce white egg, for example, as the premium egg.
00:34:57
Speaker
One big example is the little supermarket with the Kipster concept.
00:35:00
Speaker
So,
00:35:01
Speaker
introducing the most sustainable egg on the planet.
00:35:04
Speaker
That's at least what they claim.
00:35:05
Speaker
So they introduced that egg and they were looking at the reaction, the response of their buyers.
00:35:11
Speaker
And what did they saw?
00:35:13
Speaker
Their public, the audience at Lidl, so a discount or supermarket, was willing to pay the premium price for a white egg.
00:35:20
Speaker
And why was that?
00:35:21
Speaker
Because the story
00:35:23
Speaker
was there.
00:35:24
Speaker
And they believed in the story and the story was fully backed up with facts.
00:35:28
Speaker
I'm going to go even further and I'm going to also declare an enormous conflict of interest here as being someone who works for Kipster and so a fully paid up member of a believer in that circular farming message.
00:35:40
Speaker
But I'd go further and say that the supermarket in question is also investing their marketing budget in talking about
00:35:50
Speaker
selling kipster eggs because of the strength of those um you know sustainability credentials so yes it's a white egg yes it's it's it's different and there are features to do with the animal around it but there's also features to do with um you know crucially the feed supply and and the use of waste and the respect of the male uh chick as well as well as the the female but to see the supermarket market eggs we don't we don't see supermarkets in this country
00:36:18
Speaker
spending advertising money on eggs, or if we do, I apologise, but it's a fraction of a marketing budget.
00:36:26
Speaker
But this supermarket did in the Netherlands, and it's on a minuscule proportion of every egg that they sell.
00:36:35
Speaker
Oh, yes, absolutely.
00:36:37
Speaker
And the funny thing or the interesting thing was it was not only them paying for it, also the NGOs were paying for it.
00:36:44
Speaker
So they were really out and open to the public.
00:36:47
Speaker
They were congratulating Little and Kipster with the concept, with the first X being produced and promoting even it because they say, okay,
00:36:56
Speaker
it does tick all the boxes.
00:36:58
Speaker
And we shouldn't forget also the land use because, well, I'm from the Netherlands, I'm Dutch.
00:37:03
Speaker
Most of you know that the Dutch is one of the crowded, crowded countries on the planet.
00:37:08
Speaker
So our land is very limited and therefore also the price of land, it's sky high.
00:37:16
Speaker
And all our land, because we're in the European Delta,
00:37:19
Speaker
is fertile you can use it for farming as well or for housing or whatsoever it it's there's a value related to that land so and you talked about in sustainability the importance of um you know the bird being able to cope with alternative feed ingredients and and and where we're sat today you know most birds being farmed will be fed on a wheat soya
00:37:45
Speaker
combination diet and in different countries, you know, wheat might be an alternative cereal and but soy typically globally is going to be, you know, prominent in the protein source.
00:37:55
Speaker
That's true.
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:58
Speaker
Whereas waste materials co-products
00:38:03
Speaker
feel like this more sustainable direction of travel.
00:38:07
Speaker
Does that, do those diets present a challenge to the laying hens in the same way that they do to the meat sector birds who appear to be on a much finer tightrope as far as adaptability to animals?
00:38:23
Speaker
Exactly.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
So that's the benefit of the laying hens.
00:38:26
Speaker
They are better able to cope with what I would always say, poor quality diets, because indeed the broiler diet is one of the highest quality diets you can find in the field of all animal farming.
00:38:38
Speaker
It's a very highly quality diet.
00:38:40
Speaker
With chickens, and that's also part of our breeding philosophy, we need to include more and more byproducts, alternative sources, feed sources into the diet because we know the pressure on the use of soya, on the use of palm oil in this part of the world.
00:38:56
Speaker
It's only growing.
00:38:58
Speaker
We now have the first declarations of supermarkets that say, oh, we only allow the sourcing of soya-free eggs.
00:39:05
Speaker
And while we also know from a producer point of view that soya is a wonderful protein.
00:39:10
Speaker
The chicken can perfectly digest it and it has a beautiful amino acid component makeup.
00:39:18
Speaker
So it's in that sense a superfood to provide to the chickens.
00:39:23
Speaker
But what we see by adjusting our pure line diets, we are able to breed chickens that are healthy.
00:39:31
Speaker
better able to cope with diets with more and more byproducts in it.
00:39:34
Speaker
And if we are honest, there is not enough byproducts or at least leftovers from bakeries and pasta factories that you can feed into the chicken diets.
00:39:47
Speaker
The competition there is too high.
00:39:48
Speaker
And luckily, the waste stream is getting less and less because everybody in the whole food chain is making improvements.
00:39:57
Speaker
But a chicken nowadays is relatively well capable to cope with those
00:40:03
Speaker
So that's a deliberate breeding strategy.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yes, but it's a deliberate breeding strategy, absolutely, to make sure that we are prepared for the future.
00:40:10
Speaker
And that is what I always say.
00:40:13
Speaker
Because many people always ask us, oh, it's so challenging for you guys to sit there with your breeding in the Western Europe.
00:40:21
Speaker
You're being bullied away.
00:40:22
Speaker
And I say, well, that's true.
00:40:24
Speaker
It's not easy to maintain our breeding activities in the Western part of the globe.
00:40:30
Speaker
But on the other hand, we always say we are in the middle of the heat.
00:40:34
Speaker
So we have our eyes and ears open.
00:40:36
Speaker
So we know exactly what's going on.
00:40:38
Speaker
So we can much quicker adopt our breeding program towards the needs of this part of the society.
00:40:46
Speaker
And we know how to breed a cage chicken.
00:40:50
Speaker
But by being in the middle of the heat, we also know nowadays how to breed cage-free chicken.
00:40:57
Speaker
that is capable to cope with the demands that all the stakeholders are asking in the future.
00:41:05
Speaker
We've talked a bit
Bird Welfare Focus in Breeding Programs
00:41:06
Speaker
about egg color.
00:41:07
Speaker
We've talked a bit about importance of rearing.
00:41:19
Speaker
We've talked a bit about eggshell colour, we've talked about the importance of rearing, the adaptability of birds to deal with perhaps changing diets in the future.
00:41:29
Speaker
We're slightly skirted around the topic of welfare.
00:41:31
Speaker
I'd like to come back to where welfare sits in the breeding programme.
00:41:35
Speaker
What are the things that you're able to change?
00:41:38
Speaker
What are you measuring?
00:41:39
Speaker
What are the welfare challenges of the future in this market and beyond?
00:41:47
Speaker
When looking from the welfare perspective, it's all about nowadays about having a bird that is resilient, robust, which is social towards each other.
00:41:58
Speaker
Although by nature, chickens are not social.
00:42:00
Speaker
They tend to be rather aggressive animals.
00:42:02
Speaker
And that's also a very interesting fact where the domestication of the chicken started with.
00:42:07
Speaker
It was not for meat, neither for eggs.
00:42:10
Speaker
It was for cockfighting.
00:42:12
Speaker
And still, that's a big business around the globe today, all the cockfighting that is there.
00:42:15
Speaker
But that was where chickens initially were kept for, for their aggressive behavior.
00:42:20
Speaker
So then we more or less, we still today need to tackle those characteristics which are there by nature inside the chicken genome.
00:42:30
Speaker
there are some quite aggressive genes to overcome.
00:42:34
Speaker
So, especially the part of keeping birds in very large groups, and we know by research that on average a chicken is able to recognize about 100 other chickens, but in today's systems, minimum flock size is often 2,000, 3,000, 6,000 units, at least compartments within the unit.
00:42:53
Speaker
So, that means for the chickens a lot of new faces every day, every other day.
00:42:58
Speaker
So,
00:42:59
Speaker
But there are things we can do to help them.
00:43:01
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:43:01
Speaker
So for instance, now, light technology, you're able to introduce UVA light, which actually helps the chicken recognize other individual hens.
00:43:11
Speaker
And that's UVA bulbs.
00:43:12
Speaker
I mean, there's a lot of discussion now in the UK industry about
00:43:17
Speaker
Natural daylight, putting windows on the houses, but you put a plastic window and it acts as a UVA filter, which is just the kind of light you're trying to introduce.
00:43:27
Speaker
But you can use a UVA bulb to help the hen
00:43:31
Speaker
To help the birds, to help the hens, and especially lighting strategies nowadays.
00:43:34
Speaker
And so also, especially in the aviary systems, you can really mimic dusk and dawn.
00:43:39
Speaker
Also putting the right colors in to make sure that the birds get calm, that never turn on the light, just switch on the light, switch, because that will cause a lot of stress for those birds.
00:43:52
Speaker
The way we design the nests, sufficient privacy when they produce the eggs.
00:43:58
Speaker
So I always say,
00:44:00
Speaker
Never save a penny on their space.
00:44:03
Speaker
Those kind of things, very easy things.
00:44:05
Speaker
But the birds today, from a welfare point of view, also the feathering, of course.
00:44:09
Speaker
It's their first part of their protection system.
00:44:12
Speaker
It's the feather cover.
00:44:13
Speaker
So the better the feather stays on, the better the quality of the feather pack.
00:44:17
Speaker
It's...
00:44:18
Speaker
will be easier for them to have their thermal regulation up and running.
00:44:25
Speaker
And it's also a defense part.
00:44:26
Speaker
So it protects them also from exterior challenges, so to say.
00:44:33
Speaker
So that is a big part of it.
00:44:35
Speaker
And bone health is an important one.
00:44:38
Speaker
In the end, well...
00:44:40
Speaker
For the producer, they want a healthy bird.
00:44:43
Speaker
And we know ourselves, especially related to bone health, well, in the 70s, 80s, cage layer fatigue, had osteoporosis.
00:44:50
Speaker
It was definitely there.
00:44:51
Speaker
But via breeding, we have been able to take it out.
00:44:53
Speaker
They have stronger bones, more medullary bone to make sure that they are producing good quality eggs throughout their lifetime.
00:45:01
Speaker
And also, therefore, when you look at the past 20, 30 years, the egg weight curve, it has completely changed.
00:45:09
Speaker
So the birds today are producing quicker, larger, medium or large size egg, while the number of extra large eggs has significantly reduced.
00:45:20
Speaker
We have flattened the curve.
00:45:22
Speaker
And that flattening of the curve is really putting less pressure, is lowering the daily demand for that laying hand.
00:45:29
Speaker
So she's better able to cope during her lifetime from a physical point of view, better to cope with egg production as well.
00:45:38
Speaker
primary factors behind being able to extend the life, the productive life of a layer and the healthy life of a layer from 70 weeks to 100 weeks plus.
00:45:46
Speaker
Controlling the egg weight curve is definitely one of them.
00:45:49
Speaker
And genetics played a significant role in that because there is a heritability of egg weight of around, well, depends per line, per breed, 45 to 55%.
00:46:00
Speaker
So that's quite significant.
00:46:01
Speaker
The same with the body weights.
00:46:03
Speaker
Yes, from the 70s until...
00:46:07
Speaker
15 years ago, we definitely went down in body weight.
00:46:09
Speaker
But you see, during the past 15 years, the body weight of the birds is stable.
00:46:14
Speaker
Some of them even have increased slightly to make sure that they also have some reserves left in case of when there's a challenge.
00:46:22
Speaker
Because the bird, with the productivity they have today, they will produce that egg anyway.
00:46:29
Speaker
But...
00:46:30
Speaker
we don't need, we should not squeeze the bird, you know.
00:46:33
Speaker
That's the reason why you've kept feed intake levels.
00:46:36
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:46:37
Speaker
Already stable for many, many years now, because you don't want to squeeze the intake levels of those birds that can challenge the, you know, the healthy maintenance balance of the bird's physiology.
00:46:49
Speaker
If they...
00:46:50
Speaker
If they're performing, then give them the fuel to continue.
00:46:53
Speaker
It will pay itself back.
00:46:54
Speaker
It will pay itself back.
00:46:55
Speaker
Because otherwise, if you will give them a crappier feed, the birds will compensate themselves.
00:47:00
Speaker
They have this biological feature that the bird can eat according to their needs.
00:47:05
Speaker
So, and that's one clear example is always when you have a naked chicken, your feed consumption goes up dramatically.
00:47:12
Speaker
So, you know, you can, that they can eat 135, 145 grams a day.
00:47:15
Speaker
They are capable of doing so.
00:47:19
Speaker
No, it's not preferred that they do so, but if they have lost all their feathers, they need that energy to stay warm, to keep their condition on.
00:47:27
Speaker
So there you clearly see that interaction with the environment.
00:47:32
Speaker
And that is definitely all those factors play a big role in our breeding program today.
00:47:38
Speaker
So it's really bred today from the point of the laying hand to keep her in a fit condition.
00:47:45
Speaker
all the way to the end.
00:47:46
Speaker
So that's why also in the latest week of their life, when they are at our pure line farms, we still measure the body weight to make sure to see, okay, how is the evolution?
00:47:56
Speaker
Did they became super lean, so skinny birds, or did they became super fat birds, or did they stay in very good condition?
00:48:04
Speaker
So those kind of traits we all adopted into the breeding program to make sure that the birds today
00:48:12
Speaker
are capable to withstand all the challenges in the field.
Sustainability Initiatives at Joyce and Hill's Hatchery
00:48:18
Speaker
It's that resilience, isn't it?
00:48:19
Speaker
It's resilience.
00:48:20
Speaker
It's resilience.
00:48:20
Speaker
And to come back to what you were talking earlier about Kipster, there is a reason why Kipster have moved to whitebirds, where you've got challenging conditions, you're not treating those birds, you're feeding them byproduct diets.
00:48:34
Speaker
And the strain of bird that you use for those Kipster systems is coping very well with those pressures.
00:48:42
Speaker
And that's the benefit of having a broad gene pool.
00:48:46
Speaker
And in particular in white, we see a much broader gene pool and we're able to select within that gene pool for birds that really do cope with those kinds of challenges.
00:48:55
Speaker
And there is a massive welfare bonus to moving to white birds for that very reason.
00:49:03
Speaker
I don't want to cut you off on mid-flow there, but we are going to come back after the break and we're going to talk about white in detail.
00:49:11
Speaker
As you know, I'm a big fan.
00:49:13
Speaker
I've put in an email somewhere this week.
00:49:15
Speaker
I'm a massive fan.
00:49:16
Speaker
Laying Hen Welfare Forum, we're conducting a survey and Paula...
00:49:21
Speaker
a big shout out to paula paula sent me an email and saying could i help with this i sent it to every farmer i know that's got whites because i don't i just think you know we just need to get on board but um yeah that we're going to talk about we're going to talk about what we can't talk about sustainability with with um without talking about uh carbon and nick i want to we've talked a lot about breeding let's just talk about hatchery for a minute because you've
00:49:44
Speaker
had a bit of news in the course of the last fortnight.
00:49:47
Speaker
You've done a lot of work looking at the sustainability of your distribution business.
00:49:51
Speaker
And I wonder if you could just sort of explain to us what you've been doing.
00:49:54
Speaker
So we chose Eggbase because we worked with Eggbase on other projects such as the data collection, which is very important for feeding back to the genetics department about how well the birds are actually performing in the field.
00:50:06
Speaker
A lot of very useful data there to capture.
00:50:09
Speaker
So we chose Eggbase to do a scope one and two assessment on the hatchery.
00:50:17
Speaker
We have made some steps in terms of investments in the hatchery over the last three or four years.
00:50:23
Speaker
So we set a baseline of 2020.
00:50:26
Speaker
And since that 2020 baseline, we've invested in solar panels, we've invested in
00:50:32
Speaker
renewable energy in terms of heat pumps, etc.
00:50:37
Speaker
And we've also done some electrification of the sales team's fleet.
00:50:43
Speaker
And those have really struck benefits.
00:50:45
Speaker
I believe the scope one and two emissions have come down by 8%.
00:50:50
Speaker
During that period, we've also done produce more hence.
00:50:53
Speaker
So the 2024 readout on carbon footprint per chick is actually a falling of 17%, so 17% less carbon to produce the same day old chick.
00:51:05
Speaker
Yeah, the numbers are fantastic.
00:51:07
Speaker
Is there more to go?
00:51:08
Speaker
Is there anything that you can you can do?
00:51:10
Speaker
What's your what's your outlook?
00:51:12
Speaker
I think so.
00:51:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:13
Speaker
I mean, we're obviously going to bring in scope three.
00:51:17
Speaker
I think with the obviously feed is not our area of speciality and you'll probably do a separate podcast on that.
00:51:24
Speaker
But the improvements in feed over the years, especially use of enzymes, etc., has really reduced that carbon footprint again.
00:51:36
Speaker
I mean, stepwise, stepwise.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's a gradual process.
00:51:40
Speaker
I think the other big thing on feed, of course, is that
00:51:44
Speaker
is that balance.
00:51:45
Speaker
A lot of carbon footprint in feed comes from the land use change, in particular of soya, and that's something we're challenged with in Western Europe, where it's become a very important concept.
00:51:58
Speaker
And I think, you know, if you look at North American soya, it's lower carbon footprint because it hasn't got that land use thing in there.
00:52:05
Speaker
But of course, if everyone switched to North American soya,
00:52:09
Speaker
in Europe, then that Brazilian soya would still go somewhere else.
00:52:13
Speaker
And the good thing that's happened in South America is starting with the change to GM free soya,
00:52:25
Speaker
the supply chains in South America were adapting to segregated supply chains and what we're seeing now in South America is they're able to segregate land use change as well so that there is some benefits to what's happened in the past.
00:52:40
Speaker
It's not just about soy, I think is what I would want to remind people.
00:52:45
Speaker
If I could talk to anyone, it would be a retailer.
00:52:47
Speaker
We'd love to get a supermarket on here and say, look, why can you guys not give a signal to the market to say we want X percentage inclusion of a UK grown protein?
00:52:58
Speaker
Peas and beans.
00:52:59
Speaker
Why are we not saying to the feed mills or to the supply chains that go right the way back to an arable grower?
00:53:07
Speaker
get peas and beans in the ground then let's have birds please turn um that that are capable of of um yeah living on a proportion of these peas and beans that that actually get us out of and of course also processed animal protein as well that's been banned for many years in the uk there's a consultation on underway at the minute isn't there and the people i talk to and i've heard different views but people i talk to are very confident that that will be you know legalized again in in in the relatively near future it's not the whole answer but it's it's it's there
00:53:37
Speaker
But that's got to be it, hasn't it?
00:53:38
Speaker
A compound, you know, let's have 5% meat and bone meal, let's have 5% UK grown protein.
00:53:43
Speaker
And suddenly our soy requirement is low single digit, if anything.
00:53:48
Speaker
To come back to what we can do on chicks, you know, there are still moves that we can make.
00:53:53
Speaker
There are things that we can do further, wind turbines, of course, but also things like smart motors.
00:54:01
Speaker
We've got a lot of motors in the hatchery and the historically old motors were either off or on.
00:54:08
Speaker
And now you see many more companies investing in smart motors that have an infinite variable speed on the motor.
00:54:16
Speaker
So we've got things like fans in the hatchery, which...
00:54:20
Speaker
If we transferred all of those motors to smart motors, I think we can gain some savings there.
00:54:24
Speaker
I mean, they're more expensive to buy, so it's an investment again.
00:54:28
Speaker
But I think those kind of technologies will come along, and we're seeing those in other industries.
00:54:33
Speaker
I think one of the reasons why we haven't done it yet is the company we were talking to is so busy installing these smart motors into people like Rolls-Royce that we're kind of low down the food chain.
00:54:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:43
Speaker
Well, I think...
00:54:48
Speaker
From what I've seen, the work that you've done so far, I just think it's absolutely fantastic.
00:54:51
Speaker
So, yeah, take my head off.
00:54:53
Speaker
Again, it's all win-win stuff, isn't it?
00:54:55
Speaker
I mean, you know, like the conversation we're having about egg layers being, you know, becoming more and more sustainable with very little downside in terms of what they're
Inovo Sexing Technology Challenges
00:55:06
Speaker
doing.
00:55:06
Speaker
But, you know, improving the energy efficiency of your operations is a win-win.
00:55:12
Speaker
I mean, it lowers your cost and it improves the environment.
00:55:15
Speaker
It's just a...
00:55:16
Speaker
win-win all around yeah let me take you um to to another technology that that could come into the hatchery that may result in you needing to hatch less chicks dare i mention the words in ovo sexing and and i know and i wonder between you i mean turn again looking looking at the european market that appears to have made its call and and and many many hatcheries if not most hatcheries oh no not most no no no yeah
00:55:44
Speaker
So it's, but there's definitely a trend going on that in Western Europe, where it all started, the hatcheries are adopting the Innova-Saxing technology.
00:55:52
Speaker
So for example, Germany is there, France is there, Norway is there, Switzerland is there.
00:55:58
Speaker
The Netherlands is, well, all the hatcheries are equipped with it, but it's still, there is not, well, two weeks ago, they also announced there's now the market commitment to adopt it, but it's not by legislation.
00:56:11
Speaker
And we there see quite some differences between the EU member states.
00:56:15
Speaker
And that's why there's no common goal, common date, common legislation around it, which is sometimes resulting in the fact that it's...
00:56:28
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of question marks.
00:56:31
Speaker
There's also a lot of big differences between the different EU member states.
00:56:36
Speaker
So, for example, in France, you only need to apply it for brown chicks.
00:56:40
Speaker
You need to do it before day 15, for example, while in Germany,
00:56:46
Speaker
It was very strict and they had the goal to go before day four of the incubation process.
00:56:51
Speaker
Then they found out, well, at this stage in time, it's not going to happen because it are relatively new technologies.
00:56:58
Speaker
And there is still so much further development going on that, yes, there are some technologies that have been implemented, but it's a lot of trial and error.
00:57:07
Speaker
And therefore, the benefit for the UK market is if you can wait a bit more, you will be able to adopt better technologies in your hatcheries, which are much better accepted by the market itself.
00:57:20
Speaker
Because we already had in the first newspapers embryo abortion.
00:57:26
Speaker
So it's the whole discussion of culling a male chick.
00:57:30
Speaker
I'm not surprised.
00:57:31
Speaker
Go back to that French statistic that you've just said, day 15, you know,
00:57:36
Speaker
Brown birds only for browns, not for the whites.
00:57:39
Speaker
And then all the sexing errors that you come across, you can still kill at day old in the hatchery.
00:57:46
Speaker
So it's, well, in Germany, you're not allowed to kill any.
00:57:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:52
Speaker
So you need to grow all your male chicks that are being born as well.
00:57:56
Speaker
So there is so much differences between the continent and that is not very easy.
00:58:03
Speaker
And therefore, and also what I see about, for example, the...
00:58:10
Speaker
select technology.
00:58:11
Speaker
The developments they are making, they are now at the third or the fourth module because the first devices required a lot of human input.
00:58:22
Speaker
A lot of labor was invested with that as well.
00:58:24
Speaker
And we all know in the blue collar job all across Western Europe, the difficulties to find blue collar workers, people willing to work in a hatchery.
00:58:32
Speaker
And those are all those kinds of challenges.
00:58:35
Speaker
that the good thing is they are being overcome.
00:58:38
Speaker
So there's new innovations coming along.
00:58:41
Speaker
The technologies are further and further being developed.
00:58:45
Speaker
I guess that comes with risk, doesn't it?
00:58:47
Speaker
I think if I take a step back and think, you know, 10 years ago, it in obosexing would have been, you know,
00:58:57
Speaker
laboratory possible scientific dream a a bit of a bit of a nirvana um and not not commercial and to see where we are now where as you say most hatcheries have got something installed it may be different technologies it it may not be for every um every hatch that they're that they're using it but i
00:59:17
Speaker
That's quite some speed of development.
00:59:20
Speaker
But I guess those early investors, sorry, Nick, the early investors have probably taken an enormous risk with high, high capital costs that could quite quickly become out of date if the technology moves on.
00:59:29
Speaker
This is a classic case of legislators being pushed by an extremely vociferous minority lobbying group into making legislative changes that had unintended consequences.
00:59:44
Speaker
And I'm wholeheartedly for solving this question.
00:59:49
Speaker
I think there will be a technology that comes along in the short term that will provide a very good solution.
00:59:58
Speaker
I think the solutions that have been forced to be implemented in those countries where they've had the legislation have had some very negative consequences.
01:00:07
Speaker
In Germany, for instance,
01:00:10
Speaker
several of the small, very nice hatcheries went bankrupt because they could not afford to implement inovosexing technology.
01:00:20
Speaker
Still 30% of males hatched in Germany, I understand, are exported to Poland to be grown for a meat that nobody wants.
01:00:29
Speaker
So there are some very unintended consequences with that.
01:00:32
Speaker
And the technologies that are implemented
01:00:34
Speaker
still have significant downsides.
01:00:37
Speaker
You know, they're either very slow and invasive, or you can't do them earlier than 12 days.
01:00:43
Speaker
And there were levels of accuracy questions there, from what I understand from my French colleagues.
01:00:49
Speaker
So, and they're very energy intensive.
01:00:51
Speaker
So using an MRI scanner in the hatchery to determine the sex, I mean, that raises some ethical questions.
01:00:58
Speaker
If you can afford an MRI scan, why would you not put it into a hospital
01:01:01
Speaker
Why would you put it into a chicken hatchery?
01:01:03
Speaker
I mean, it's crazy.
01:01:04
Speaker
And the other thing is, of course, it raises the cost to the consumer.
Complexities in Breeding Sustainability
01:01:09
Speaker
And we're talking about a very important food staple here.
01:01:13
Speaker
I mean, eggs would provide a very low cost protein to working families.
01:01:18
Speaker
And we're seeing this pushback happening in Europe against...
01:01:22
Speaker
so-called sustainable policies that are basically pushing up cost of living for small families.
01:01:28
Speaker
And that's very easily jumped on by populists and saying, well, we should push back against the whole lot.
01:01:33
Speaker
And you risk throwing away all of the sustainable gains that we're trying to make
01:01:37
Speaker
for the sake of rushing into a technology.
01:01:39
Speaker
And I really think, I feel strongly that in the UK scenario, we shouldn't jump into a technology just because a couple of announcements have been made in Europe that it is technically feasible to do some level of inovosexing.
01:01:52
Speaker
I think we should wait until we have a proper solution that is early,
01:01:57
Speaker
that you can gain an actual benefit from consumers in terms of the cost of production and does away with this problem of male chicks coming into life and being euthanized straight away.
01:02:13
Speaker
I mean,
01:02:14
Speaker
The other thing to consider, of course, is in the UK, we're a net import for male chicks.
01:02:18
Speaker
So we have a lot of people who keep raptors and reptiles that need that whole food.
01:02:23
Speaker
And if we stop supplying that market with male chicks, then something else will be brought into life.
01:02:29
Speaker
Back to your unintended consequences and what do we do?
01:02:32
Speaker
Of course, yeah.
01:02:34
Speaker
And that will be probably an entirely unregulated food chain.
01:02:37
Speaker
And already in the Netherlands, they're raising mice in cages to...
01:02:42
Speaker
to supply at their market it's crazy it's an interesting discussion and it and it and i guess it serves as a as a useful um full stop on the on the conversation that we've had in in in part one um because it shows just how nuanced and how often conflicted the topic of sustainability uh can be i think my my take from from you know our conversation today is um it
01:03:08
Speaker
breeding is enormously complicated and that it isn't just in a laboratory and a snip here and a decision there and away you go it's it's a very very long-term project and the physical characteristics of birds take time to to develop and the science is just part of it um that actually the egg industry is
01:03:28
Speaker
has got some very, very strong sustainability credentials, but also untapped potential in our market in the UK to step up to that global challenge turn that you talked about with the 22% additional volume required over the course of the next decade.
Conclusion and Thanks
01:03:47
Speaker
We've talked a bit about market segmentation.
01:03:50
Speaker
and precise needs of the market and the tensions that come with welfare.
01:03:55
Speaker
So it's been a fascinating conversation.
01:03:57
Speaker
Nick and Tern, thank you so much for joining us today.
01:04:01
Speaker
We're going to be back in a minute.
01:04:02
Speaker
We're going to talk about white eggs.
01:04:04
Speaker
But for the moment, that's the end of this episode.
01:04:08
Speaker
Again, I'm going to quickly thank our sponsors, Elanco, Alltech,
01:04:13
Speaker
UK Agritech Centre, Moy Park, Aviagen and Trowel Nutrition.
01:04:18
Speaker
I've been Tom Willings and you're listening to the Sustainability Hub podcast brought to you by Poultry Network.