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EP 28, David Mark PT 2: Broiler Farm Expansion in the UK – Planning Permission, Permits and Investing in New Broiler Sheds
161 Plays2 months ago
In this episode of The Poultry Network Podcast, Tom Woolman and Tom Willings are joined again by poultry consultant David Mark to discuss what it takes to develop new broiler units (or expand existing broiler sites) in today’s UK poultry industry. Drawing on his work with growers (including many in Lincolnshire), David sets out where the opportunities are, what the biggest blockers tend to be, and how to approach the process with a clear commercial plan.
Inside the episode:
• Broiler sector outlook: demand for chicken, improved efficiency and the need for continual reinvestment in housing and equipment
• Partnership in an integrated supply chain: why contract growers matter to integrators (including Moy Park and Avara) and the role of the British Poultry Council (BPC) in pushing the case for new capacity
• Choosing your operating model: contract grower vs managed contract (including outsourced farm management) vs farm business tenancy / fully repaired lease — and how risk and margin differ
• People and performance: how to keep control as you scale, the role of farm managers, and practical options for stepping back from day‑to‑day work
• Planning and permits: site selection, separation from neighbours, pre‑application advice, and building a “pipeline” so you’re ready when planning starts to move
• Expanding existing sites: how stocking‑density changes and existing permissions can sometimes unlock additional shed capacity
• Biosecurity and public confidence: avian influenza risk, why farms can feel “closed”, and how open farm events and viewing access can help
• Nutrient management and poultry litter: treating litter as a storable by‑product, plus solutions such as biogas/biomethane, CO₂ capture and turning digestate into balanced fertiliser
If you’re in the UK researching broiler sheds, broiler farm expansion, planning applications, environmental permits, contract growing or managed broiler production, this conversation will help you focus on the decisions and the conversations that matter.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Poultry Network podcast. I'm Tom Woolman. And I'm Tom Willings. Are you feeling any better this week, Tom? No, not really. It's ahs it's lingering.
00:00:27
Speaker
In joke. It's an in joke, Tom, but yeah moving swiftly on. So um we're delighted to say that that this week we're we're joined again by um by David Mark,
00:00:40
Speaker
um consultant extraordinaire. um And if anyone has listened to the last episode, David shared some of his um experience in terms of what he's seen in the industry, not just in the poultry industry, but in um yeah agricultural industries since
Evolution of the Poultry Industry Since 1988
00:00:55
Speaker
the start of his career. And we reflected on some of the changes that happened in that in that time.
00:00:59
Speaker
um A fascinating perspective, you know, and a perspective beyond both of our lifetimes, Tom. I think we have to sort of salute. I love it then. yeah i think you've got a in in all seriousness um yeah david you made it you made a point in the in the warm-up to our ah our previous episode and if if anyone hasn't listened to it i'd highly recommend that you do and um you should by now already be subscribing to all of our our our podcasts but um
00:01:29
Speaker
Yeah, ah I think things that didn't happen within our lifetime feel and much further you know in the past, in history, than they actually were. That was the crux of ah of a point that you were making to Tom and I. And I think that's that's absolutely true. i I know in the egg industry, 1988 remains a very, very dark turning point for for the industry and and from which...
00:01:54
Speaker
Great things have subsequently um occurred, but you know the older we get, the fewer of the the participants in the egg industry weren't around in 1988 and have no idea what the grey hair, or in our case, no hair, are talking about when we do refer to it. But yeah, you you you really brought it home. You you did a fantastic job.
Current State and Efficiency in Poultry Sector
00:02:15
Speaker
So, David, you just wanted to talk this episode a little bit about your current work, and which I believe is um is working supporting farmers, looking at new broiler shed investments and strategic decisions and and and ways of developing their their their businesses.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah. What's your your general overview of of the the health of the um of the poultry sector and the broiler sector at the moment? but To put it in context, I went back and with the with the benefit of ChatGBT, looked at the chicken consumption figures from 75 when I left school to now, and there's the the consumption is over 100%. per person per year um and looking at even the efficiency of the broiler uh you know feed to meat ratio over that period for for a typical birds going over by 20 so massive changes chicken as a good quality protein is major part of the diet there's a major demand for chicken um The work that has been done with reducing stocking density has put pressure on space and the industry is' in good heart. I talked earlier about the importance of partnership. I believe that contract growers and growers generally um work well with the integrators. Yeah, there's always going to be those discussions around pricing, but it is about partnership.
Partnerships in the Poultry Supply Chain
00:03:38
Speaker
Moy Park, Avara, Blue Sisters cannot exist without chicken, without growers. and And that whole expertise and their willingness to invest, to keep investing, because the poultry business has shown us that we need to reinvest. We need to keep our buildings contemporary, our equipment updated. And as we start to grow, you know,
00:04:00
Speaker
develop and build good quality housing. so and And I would have said that the trend that I've seen is that generally when you've got large um large businesses or large integrators is is they want to put their money into places where they can see a very quick rate of return. And that is generally into um facilities that are that are running on on high volume, places like factories, places like feed mills um and and things that are really critical to their to their operations. the The farms are critical, but obviously there are lots and lots of farms. And I think that's where I think there's a lot of opportunities, aren't there, for farmers that want to expand, that want to to use their capital and want to grow their business in partnership with others. um
00:04:42
Speaker
There's not as many. um Yeah. go If you go back 30, 40 years, there would have been a lot of chicken businesses and integrators building their own sheds. Well, i don't think there's that many building their own sheds anymore, really. they're looking to other people to do it.
00:04:54
Speaker
Although I do think they have identified that. I'm going to say owning the space, but having that space committed to you, having those contract growers committed to you as a business is essential. And and I think there's a lot more effort being put into the partnership, as I talked about, building slightly longer term contracts, but making them worthwhile, make them receptive to the marketplace. I think also, you know, there's a lot of work being done with the and with the supermarkets. Their agricultural departments wanted to come out to meet farmers and farmers.
00:05:25
Speaker
understanding what farmers are doing and getting farmers to understand what they need from them. All of that's really healthy.
Challenges and Biosecurity in Poultry Farming
00:05:31
Speaker
It's not about a sale in the wholesale market or two, you know, it's um <unk> transactional. It is partnership based. and I think you a lot of my growers that I'm doing work with, quite a lot of because it's Lincolnshire, are very much involved in the tillage side of this business. They really rely, you know, this diversification of chicken is a lifeline for them. Now it's very strong at minute and cereals aren't.
00:05:55
Speaker
But, you know, if you've got more than one leg to the stool, know, you have the possibility that one will be up and one will be down. And that's been really beneficial. And, you yeah, we understand there's a difficulty of our own planning. um And that is a problem. And and I think we've brought, we haven't brought it on ourselves, but...
00:06:13
Speaker
I mean, I remember going to a planning en inquiry about a site that we were building near near Grantham and the local schoolmaster was there and he said, oh, the school's going to close. If this farm is built, the smell, what's going to happen? This is terrible. you know All sorts of nonsense was spoken. The farm has been built.
00:06:32
Speaker
It's a lovely farm. very well developed, very clean and tidy, no impact on the community. But you know we don't sort of answer those things. And we've been very careful about biosecurity. We all know about AI and we all know about the importance of that.
00:06:45
Speaker
But the other thing that has done is that has stopped people coming in to see what we do in these sheds. And you it's almost as if we're hiding something. We're not. It was for biosecurity reasons. Now, we had a period where we built quite a lot of viewing galleries.
00:06:57
Speaker
But still, I don't know that we've used them enough enough to get a percentage the population in. But you know it is important, you open farm weekends, open farm Sundays, all of those are important you would to try and get the public to understand that we are actually proud of what we do, producing ah chicken for the market. Yeah,
Considerations for Building Broiler Sites
00:07:13
Speaker
yeah. So if if someone's looking to build a broiler site, what are some of the considerations that they should have at the start of the process?
00:07:22
Speaker
Look, um there's lots of things you can, obviously you need a site, you need a separation from neighbourhood dwellings. But there's lots of people out there who can support you. Lots of the advisors on the planning side that will come out will even look at your site on Google Map and start saying, look, but don't bother guys, this is never going to work. Oh yeah, that's a possibility. um And that's what I would advise people to do. Go and have a conversation.
00:07:46
Speaker
Talk to the under integrators. You're the ones that will be in your area. Talk to people who are out there consulting to a number of people and you they'll help you through that process um and see if you've got a possibility.
00:07:58
Speaker
um I think you know there's so many planning applications for new farms stacked up that people are scared to put their application in. But really, we've still got to build a pipeline because when that door starts to clear,
00:08:12
Speaker
And I believe it will. i mean, the integrators are doing some sterling work lobbying to try and put the point across. All the integrators at BPC, they're working together to try and make the point to try and because the economy needs this investment, it needs this growth.
00:08:30
Speaker
We as food security need need Need additional chicken. We've got capacities, factories that are built that need the capacity to keep them efficient. So I think once it starts to clear, then you really want to be next
Models of Poultry Farming
00:08:42
Speaker
in line. um i you know And then other people work and say, well, look, I am used to growing cereals. um I'm not really, how would i could I be a chicken farmer? What does that entail? So some people have gone down the farm-based tenancy route, and that does suit some people. But contract grower is where you're going to get the the biggest margin. so that ah
00:09:02
Speaker
So to just stop you there, contract grower would be someone that that builds a site and and runs it themselves then? Yeah, exactly. They'd build a site and they would be responsible. Now, these are big sites. You're going to have a farm manager or farm staff.
00:09:14
Speaker
So the other model within that piece is a managed contract. So your contract, you own the farm, but you contract the management that out. I work for company called Applied Poultry, and that's the sort of thing we do with 10 farms, 50 sheds, and the 2 million birds on the ground. We will run those for in partnership, but that's one model. There are other growers I work with that they farm it themselves, they recruit farm managers and they they pick up the knowledge of the business themselves. And there are other people who who just FBT it, so the farm is built, handed over to the integrator at day one and then they will run it under a fully repaired lease for 15 years. Now margins would be slightly different, different risk categories there. Different things work for different farm families. yeah I think you've you've struck on quite ah an important thing here, David, because as far as I can see, I can see there are plenty of people that have, I ah guess if I'm looking at in the farming sector, and they could be landowners of a reasonable size, or they they could be um they could be poultry farmers that have that have expanded to a certain extent, but
00:10:19
Speaker
But I think sometimes the the barrier to expanding further is that you can build as many chicken sheds as as you want, maybe, if you've got the money there. but But how do you make sure that you keep control, that you keep keep performance as good as it can be? And I and i think um there are going to be opportunities out there for...
00:10:38
Speaker
um for for for managers, as you say, that aren't maybe in the future that aren't just just taking ah ah a salary, maybe managers that can that can you know buy shares in a business or or can be on some sort of profit share. um And I think that's how we're going to unlock some of the some of the staffing challenges that we've got around expansion and and running farms. Because let's be honest, there's not there's not a great big long queue of people that are forming up to to work on farms.
00:11:03
Speaker
And at the other end of that, we have some people maybe coming towards the end of their working life. Poultry has been good for them. They've raised their children and their doctors and their lawyers, and they don't want to come home and farm chicken, and they they they don't know how to disengage. Well, putting that into a managed contract can turn that into pension for them and still get them away from the day-to-day. those are other opportunities.
00:11:22
Speaker
um So, yeah, it's... It's out there. There are great opportunities.
Innovations in Poultry Byproduct Management
00:11:27
Speaker
I mean, some of the issues that we've had in Northern Ireland, we have in the Y Valley, are how we manage nutrients, nutrient leakage. sha you We've got the situation in the Y. And that's a major challenge, isn't it? Because I know of various places where they they've got the planning, the planning's all right, but it's but it's actually the um getting the environmental permit that that is the is the blocker or it's the holdup. you know where But I mean, I think, you know, the one thing we've got to remember is we have a very stable environment.
00:11:54
Speaker
Byproduct, poultry litter is dry, it's storable, it's manageable, it has all the phosphate and nitrate locked in it. If we can find a utilization, you know, i was working with a company up in and and Lincolnshire, building a very large biorefinery where they're going to take that litter out,
00:12:13
Speaker
Turn into biogas, clean up the biomethane onto the grid, take the CO2, liquid CO2, and then take the digestate, dry it, balance it with, because that digestate will come out at 333 MPK, which is not the right balance, but by adding nitrogen to it, produce a prilled balanced fertilizer. We have sorted that problem. Moipark have done something similar tall in Tully and Northern Ireland. So there are things we can do. And if we think about this, we we can overcome that problem. People are still buying nitrogen and they're still buying phosphate. If we can use it to plant need,
00:12:46
Speaker
and store it in such a way which is it is used for plant need. It is an asset. It is no longer a problem. I refuse to call it a waste product. It is a byproduct. So you there are things that can be done. Now, some of those investments could be north of 200 million. So you need to have big...
Strategies for Planning and Expansion
00:13:01
Speaker
organization changes to make them happen but those things are starting to happen and and i've been delighted to be part of that because i just think it's it solves a whole lot of issues it's very cyclical obviously we're using lots of fertilizer and link into to grow wheat we're producing wheat which we're feeding to the chicken we're using straw and the bedding of the chicken and then the ad process and it's very cyclical and i think it's a really it's really good solution and and and And from a planning point of view, then, what do people need to do to make sure that they have they they have a best you know the best shot at it if they're if they're going for planning permission?
00:13:33
Speaker
Well, the low hanging fruit here is those people who already have potable sheds and have maybe four sheds on the site. we have We've got planning permission for a certain number of birds on the stocking density, maybe even up to 42 kilos, as we did at the start, just have ourselves covered. That was the the maximum legal at the time.
00:13:51
Speaker
because we're destocking and we're going to stock with 30 they'll get another two poetry sheds without actually having to change their permit and those are going in lincolnshire and various places those are going through quite well so we're surviving in the minute and and grabbing two here and two there and that's really important really important the people who have those two you know if you've got four four sheds it's as almost as easy to manage as six is four and all of those cost savings so that's one way but going for new sites it's getting the right site engaging with a good planning consultant doing your pre-planning application checking everything's as good as you can
00:14:27
Speaker
go for your permit and then make the decision. Because once the big decision to go into planning, because then you've got to in your planning fee. And it can be frustrating. It's so high, especially when nothing happens for months. um But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people out there who are very frustrated, who are very keen. I try not to talk to my clients who are in that position because...
00:14:46
Speaker
point talking until we get the planning. Yeah. and keeping them You know, almost building expectations. But look I think that will clear. It's going to take a lot of work. um Again, it's also about us lobbying to show what we do is good, that, you know, we are not a burden on on the environment. The animal welfare standards are first class. It's a great product. We know our customers want to eat this product. They need it produced and they want to know it is safe and has provenance. And that's what we can give them. So it's about pulling all those strings. I mean, there's no easy answer to it. ah
00:15:23
Speaker
But yeah, it's a good industry
Advice on Planning and Strategic Partnerships
00:15:25
Speaker
to be at the minute. Do this planning piece. you be with So if we were going to going to wrap it up then and and maybe we were going to pick a couple of key takeaways for for farmers to to think about then when it comes to planning and and expansion and future opportunities, what what would what would the key takeaways be?
00:15:43
Speaker
Well, I think I would, a lot of guys who are thinking about this have got, as you say, have got attractive land. They want to diversify. This would suit with their other operations, but they've got to think how they're going to run it. Go and talk to people and see what suits your business best. Talk to your tax advisors in relation to what suits into your the whole family setup. I think that'll probably take you in the direction of contract growing. Look and see whether you you go and talk to people. I mean, I think talk to people is great. There's lots of guys who got into this business in the last 10 years who are very open to the conversation. They don't see you as competitor. and go and talk to those people. you Get advisor, get somebody who's out, you know but i' not type my own business, but you know that type of thing. There's people with more people than myself doing it. And and and you we can take you through it. um And that's how you make you make that decision. And then do the pre-planning.
00:16:40
Speaker
But first of all, go to a good planning advisor is going to say, forget about it. Don't spend any money. It's not going to work. you' You're better off spending a bit of money on a decent planning advisor and knowing that you yeah you're going to save yourself tens of thousands. there.
00:16:52
Speaker
Go the pre-planning. Make sure that's clean and tidy. Go for the environmental permit and then then take the big decision to make the big investment in the planning application. and you know That'll take a wee while until it happens. And and you know hopefully this thing will have moved all a bit by then.
00:17:09
Speaker
Brilliant. in Well, thank you ever so much, David, for that. We'll wrap it up there. But it just remains for me to remind people to subscribe to the podcast if they're not already subscribed. That way you won't miss an episode when it comes out. We do we do bring these episodes out weekly.
00:17:25
Speaker
But yes, thank you again for your time, David. It's been great. Thank you very much. we appreciate it.