Avian Influenza across Europe

Currently across Europe there is a major issue with Avian Influenza (bird-flu). This has led to the culling of around 20 million birds, roughly 7 million are from breeding stock. Poland and Hungary are the most severely hit, where the majority of chickens are produced; causing a worldwide shortage of chicken alongside significant price increases. Avian Influenza is a global issue affecting all supplier bases to last until July at the earliest.
The focus at this point is to ensuring consistent supply, and companies are working to secure steady volume throughout these turbulent times.

Avian Influenza in Poland

Across Poland the poultry market is expected to face supply issues due to several outbreaks of Avian Influenza (AI). In the third week of April 2021, 23 cases of bird flu have been reported in Poland, leading to the culling of further 400,000 hens and turkey birds. According to market participants, poultry farmers do not have the ability to clear all the dead birds quickly, which could delay the restocking process at least by five to eight weeks. This is likely to result in supply tightness in the Polish poultry market. Chicken breast price 9A05 in Poland rose by 18% y-o-y and 11% q-o-q to PLZ 13/kg on 14th April.

Global Impact

Interestingly China has seen another outbreak of Bird-flu. In particular the province of Jiangsu a resident who works within poultry was infected with a rare strain of the virus named H10n3. There are many strains of the virus and it’s not unheard of for people who works with poultry. Said resident has been doing well and is awaiting release from hospital. Beijing’s National Health Commission (NHC) have been very vocal on this situation and released the below statement:

“No human cases of H10N3 have been reported in the world. This case is an occasional poultry-to-human cross-species transmission, and the risk of a large-scale spread is extremely low,”

Avian Influenza has always had a rare infection and mortality rate with humans, looking back to the heights of 2016-17 where 300 people were tested killed due to a strain. Thankfully this is nowhere near the levels of pandemic we’ve experienced with Coronavirus and the World Health Organisation monitors the virus.

In the coming months we expect the poultry market to return to somewhat normality and will update accordingly.

All information taken from Bidfood and BBC News.