BOTH of the two main sectors of the UK poultrymeat industry staged a recovery last month.

After suffering a downturn during the late summer, broiler and turkey placings bounced back in October.

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Broiler chick numbers rose by three per cent in October compared with the same month last year; while poult numbers rose 6.2%.

Taken overall, and despite a few weak months, it has been a strong year for the broiler sector.

Compared with January-October last year, total day-olds placed were up by 13.8m during the first 10 months of this year. This amounts to an aggregate rise of 1.4% for the year to date, making a cumulative total of 985 million chicks.

Turkeys

It is a different picture for turkeys, however, where last month’s increase fell well short of offsetting the unexpected and substantial downturn in placements during the summer.

October’s rise of 50,000 poults was one of only three months this year where poult numbers showed a gain over the corresponding months in 2023.

There was a year-on-year fall in the other seven months, including much more substantial drops in January, July, August and September.

As a result, cumulative poult placings for this year are down 1.15m on January-October last year, a fall of 12.1%. It means the total number of turkeys placed on farms this year has fallen from 9.5m to 8.4m.

The sharp decline in the summer figures, down by 780,000 from June to September, is a disappointing one for the most important season of the year at Christmas.

At this stage it is not clear how this retreat was distributed between the supermarket trade, and the traditional fresh turkey trade sold through farm gates and butchers.