Australian Poultry Meat Production Plateaus in 2008

The latest ABARE statistics show a general level of stagnation in the Australian poultry industry following a number of years of growth. The report has been summarised by Jackie Linden for ThePoultrySite.

20 January 2010

3 minute read

The latest issue of Australian Commodity Statistics for 2009 has been published by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE). It gives data for the poultry industry up to 2008, and documents something of a levelling-off in the domestic poultry industry in terms of poultry meat production and consumption, although more birds were slaughtered in 2008 than in the previous year.

The number of poultry slaughtered in 2008 was almost 463 million, which was 0.9 per cent more than in the previous year, continuing a generally upward trend since 2003.

Average weight at slaughter was down slightly, so total production was two per cent lower in 2008 than the year before, at a little under 839,000 tonnes.

At 40,300 tonnes, eight per cent more poultry meat was exported in 2008 than the previous year. As a result of these combined changes, total consumption of poultry meat in the country was 798,600 tonnes, or 2.4 per cent below the level of 2007.

There was a fall in per-capita poultry meat consumption of 1.5kg from 2007. The 2008 average was 37.4kg.

Australian supply and use of poultry meat
	Unit	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Slaughterings	million	401.6	397.2	428.2	418.3	435.6	432.9	444.8	458.6	462.8
Average dressed weight c	kg	1.6	1.7	1.7	1.7	1.7	1.9	1.9	1.9	1.8
Production c	’000 tonnes	657.5	662.0	736.6	719.3	758.5	802.7	840.1	855.9	838.9
Exports c	’000 tonnes	23.7	30.7	28.1	27.1	24.6	29.0	26.8	37.3	40.3
Total consumption e	'000 tonnes	633.8	631.3	708.5	692.2	733.9	773.7	813.3	818.5	798.6
Consumption per person cd	kg	32.9	32.3	35.8	34.6	36.2	37.7	39.3	38.9	37.4
c Carcass weight e Apparent consumption f Includes chicken, turkey and duck Sources: ABS, Apparent Consumption of Foodstuffs, cat. no. 4306.0, Canberra; ABS, International Trade, Australia, cat. no. 5465.0, Canberra; ABS Principal Agricultural Commodities, Australia, Preliminary, cat. no. 7111.0, Canberra; ABS, Agriculture, Australia, cat. no. 7113.0, Canberra; ABS Agricultural Commodities, Australia, cat. no. 7121.0, Canberra; ABARE.