IPPE: Cobb unveils Cobb800™ – Balancing yield with breeder performance

29 April 2026

6 minute read

By: Sarah Mikesell

North America

Dr. William Herring, vice president of research and development at Cobb, recently spoke to The Poultry Site’s Sarah Mikesell at the 2026 International Production and Processing Expo (IPPE) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA about their new offering – Cobb800. 

William, Cobb announced a new product today. What is going to differentiate it in the market? 

Yes, there's a bit of a story there, but first, it's been named Cobb800. To walk back a bit to tell the story of how we got here, because today we announced the product, but this has been over 3 years in development. It's really a cool story. One of the things that my team and I were challenged with 3.5 years ago was Cobb did not have a competitive product on the value proposition outline, which was yield, good breeder – all those things, a good broiler all wrapped up together. 

Very quickly and based on small data set at that time, the team and I identified some genetic lines that we did not have in the marketplace. We immediately began, within our R&D assets, to test at small scale breeder and broiler. The results looked like the modeling based on the small data at that point. And it did exactly what it said it was going to do. 

At that point, we were in a timeline of our Proving Ground assets to start to assess at some scale, the breeder. We also had one of our primary customers that was highly interested in the product. They began to evaluate it at the breeder level as well. All those results continued to validate from the initial small data all the way through. On the meter of confidence, we were getting closer to the right side of certainty. 

As we got to the final stages during the summer of 2025, we worked with a number of integrators across North America and to some extent globally as well, because anywhere that there's a debone process or with a value proposition around white meat yield, this has a play. This has an important part in that process. 

Our team, account managers, and our technical services team from primarily North America, but also from other parts of the world, began to test and test and test –  different sites, different locations all over geographically including different systems and at different weights. We tested at a lighter debone of 5 lbs., give or take, all the way to 10 lbs. The product was feather sexable, and some wanted to go that route. We got all the broiler results and the debone results. It thankfully mapped to exactly those same expectations. 

Cobb never had a product that has been so thoroughly vetted and tested from beginning to end as Cobb800. We're in a confident spot in terms of what we know the bird can do. The value where this product really fits is where there's a value proposition on white meat deboned. It also has to fit as a very acceptable and prolific breeder. It does that as well and with very solid broiler performance. 

The other part is we're not one and done. While we identified those lines 3.5 years ago, at that point we were not going to look back and say we've got a product, and we are just going to let it sit still. We began intense selection at that point in time for further improved yield, broiler performance and breeder performance with consumer acceptable meat quality. Today, we have those lines that make up that product that are providing even more elite genes going down as young parent stock. 

Remember, it takes about 3 years, give or take, to push the result down through the pipeline through to a commercial product. So, it's an impressive story, and there are greater things to come associated with it.

Is the Cobb800 replacing an existing product or is it a new addition to Cobb's product portfolio? 

This is new and organic to Cobb's portfolio, so there shouldn't be any cannibalization if you have Cobb500™ down today. This is truly centered around the value proposition if you debone. 

On the Cobb500 side, let me take a step back – that product is generally a small bird non-debone product where broiler performance, WOG yield and breeder performance are incredibly important. 

We began a number of very key initiatives at the pedigree level 3.5 years ago that were new to Cobb that centered around just the right practice around genetic selection, utilization of genomics having the population structured correctly. We banked this should give us this amount of progress per year.

I can tell you this is not in dispute – based on all the customer feedback that we've gotten over the previous months from around the world as well as customer feedback from around the world this week, because there's clearly a lot of people that came in and shared data at the show. 

We've been generating around five to six, sometimes as many as 10 eggs per year that our customers see year-over-year. The Cobb500 for hitting that small bird target is important for the lighter bird. When I say lighter, I mean 5-6 lbs. and down that is an incredible chicken today and should demand serious use if your business has a fit for that type of product. It is in a different place today, and I can tell you without sharing the results it won't be the same bird next year or the year after that. The same things that generated the change of taking it where it is today are things that are going to happen in 2027 to 2028 and on down the line. 

Is the Cobb800 specific to a region or is it global? 

The Cobb800 is global in terms of its availability. A little bit of it's going to be how the global marketplace evolves, because it is very much a global marketplace on the supply demand side. 

So, the short answer to your question, is no, it's not only a North American product. That is where most of the demand is associated with it. But we see integrators that are in the value discovery that are seeing this as an opportunity area for them to improve their business.

As integrators, wherever they sit within the globe if they have value in debone white meat then this product has a play. We're seeing an evolution outside of North America of more and more businesses – I call it value discovery of figuring out how to maximize their margins associated with, do I keep this product within my home country? Do I take this part and export it because there's greater value, etc.? That's really triggered a lot of interest in this internationally outside of North America. 

We certainly see the demand for chicken rising globally. So, we can see where these products will find a home in regions of the world that need them. 

I do fundamentally agree with you as we look across the other protein segments. From a North American perspective, we have an interesting pricing scenario with beef and a shortage of supply, and everyone's familiar with that.  We have pork that is somewhere in that in-between, and we have growing consumer demand. 

As the population grows, I fundamentally think that when people are going to eat protein, chicken is, on a per capita basis, going to be a greater portion of that demand. If you're in this business, I don't think it's going anywhere. I don't think there's anything but top side growth, but we'll see.