Russian authorities have managed to bring the domestic poultry and egg market back in balance using the carrot of generous state support measures and a stick of antimonopoly investigations, according to officials.

Recently, the average wholesale price of broiler meat on the Russian market decreased by 0.1% to 157 roubles (US$1.73) per kg. The average wholesale price of a pack of 10 eggs dropped by 1.3% to 89.7 roubles (US$0.99), the Russian Agricultural Ministry said in a statement. The price dynamics have remained predominately flat since January 2024, following unprecedented turbulence in the second half of 2023. The occasional shortage of broiler meat on the shelves, seen in some regions in September 2023 and January 2024, is no longer occuring.

At the end of 2023, the Russian government adopted a decree allowing Russian regional authorities to take steps to lower poultry and egg prices. Maxim Shaskolsky, head of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service said that at the time of the meeting 34 regions utilised this tool, signing agreements with 2,200 food manufacturers, under which they promised to constrain the rise in wholesale prices in exchange for certain benefits. In addition, the authorities’ investigation revealed that in particular cases, the upward price dynamics were not justified by a corresponding growth in production costs or change in business marginality. In total, FAS kicked off 10 cases against Russian poultry and egg manufacturers for breaking antimonopoly law, Shaskolsky disclosed, not providing further details.

Thanks to generous state aid, Russia is on track to expand egg and poultry production in 2024, Maxim Uvaidov, deputy head of the Russian Agricultural Ministry, said during a recent parliament session. He said 51 egg farms are due to expand egg production in total, thanks to bank loans with subsidised interest rates. In 2023, Russian egg production reached 46.6 billion units, adding 1.2% to the 2022 level, Uvaidov said.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning could analyze poultry blood biomarkers to detect potential performance and health challenges, leading to more proactive, data-driven decisions about bird nutrition.

“This technology uses machine learning to take all the data that’s collected – not just blood data, but also seasonality, the breed, the sex of the bird and other metrics – and feed it into the neural network technology that makes predictions and then beyond that even prescriptive type of diagnostics,” explained Matthew Livingston, Verax business development manager, dsm-firmenich.

Machine learning and AI can monitor trends and changes in blood biomarker levels, which serve as an early indicator of potential diseases of the bird. Examples of blood biomarkers include calcium, sodium chloride, protein, hemoglobin, etc.

The neural network learns on a model or blood biomarker dataset, it can then highlight and even predict when indicators of broiler health issues nutritional deficiencies start to appear in a flock in real-time. The technology can also recommend nutritional strategies to help manage bird health based on that data.

Producers can use this early warning system to proactively make feed and other management changes to prevent outbreaks before they start.

“In an ideal world, we do this about four times a year. We do know that we have seasonality differences, especially with thins like electrolytes and heat stress,” Livingston said. “The machine will show us the pattern. It may be things that are obvious, but there’s always a handful of things that we didn’t even think of logically.”

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) vaccines could provide a breakthrough in vaccine technology and offer a rapid response to pathogens in the poultry industry. Unlike conventional vaccines or vector vaccines, RNA vaccines, which together with DNA vaccines are classed as nucleic acid vaccines, utilize a small piece of the pathogen’s genetic material to prompt an immune response.

Poultry producers and veterinarians are facing challenges in launching RNA vaccines into the industry. Among those challenges is the licensing process that RNA vaccinations must be approved through.

“It currently takes a range of 3-7 years to license a poultry vaccine. If a platform license is first attained for RNA technology through U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) licensing, then adaptations in vaccines to the field can now take weeks to months rather than years,” explained John El-Attrache, Ph.D., Ceva Animal Health Global Director of Science and Innovation at the 2023 Poultry Tech Summit.

When creating RNA vaccines, developers must take the genetic sequence from an isolated event.

“To conduct integrated RNA vaccine development, companies need producers to provide vaccine developers with samples and farm information so that clinical and disease diagnostics can be performed. However, it is critical that the information is collected in a standardized manner,” explained El-Attrache. 

The analysis of metadata is a tool that can support the production of an RNA vaccine, however, it can be difficult for productions managers to collect that data on the farm. “In order for us to obtain metadata we have to make it easy for the production manager and the veterinarian to get the information to put it into an application,” El-Attrache stated.

“Production veterinarians are well attuned to the differences between the various vaccine types and know how to utilize them to optimize the balance between safety and efficacy. RNA vaccines will become another tool available that further optimizes this balance” he said.

El-Attrache believes that future poultry vaccines will consist of all three types of vaccines and that technologies such as whole genome sequence analysis and artificial intelligence will help the industry produce safer and more efficacious vaccines.

Feeding saponins and polyphenols made from plant products, also known as phytogenics, to pullets and layer hens has no negative effect on performance or egg quality, revealed a validation study conducted at North Carolina State University (NCSU). Recent research suggests that phytogenic feed additives can help improve poultry gut health, protecting against a variety of diseases. In particular, the combination of these saponins and polyphenols made from Quillaja saponaria and Yucca schidigera biomass are beneficial against coccidiosis and necrotic enteritis infections.

The results revealed that birds in the pullet phase given the phytogenic feed additive consumed less feed and had equal body weights compared to the control group. “We don’t know why because we didn’t look at intestinal histology, but we think it’s because the intestine is better able to absorb the nutrients they need,” explained Dimitri Malheiros at the 2024 International Poultry Scientific Forum (IPSF).

In addition, there were no statistical differences observed in performance or egg size, grade or quality for the laying hens compared to the control group. Malheiros noted that the hens in this study were unchallenged, meaning that the birds were not purposefully exposed to coccidiosis or any other diseases. “I would really like to see this trial done at scale with a challenge imposed,” he added.

With SetCare, the new setter developed by HatchTech Incubation Technology, eggs are incubated for 24 days instead of the traditional 21 days. This results in 3% lower embryo mortality, which automatically means an improved hatching performance. The chicks that hatch will demonstrate an overall improved chick quality.
SetCare builds on HatchTech’s years of research into the beginning of the incubation period, in which embryo mortality is relatively high. This has long been accepted as an inevitable part of incubation, but a more in-depth research and a closer look at the natural incubation process, reveals that the industry-standard of a 21-day incubation process is sub-optimal. A 24-day incubation process with a more gradual increase in egg temperature is needed to help embryo cells to survive and to achieve the best hatch result.
“SetCare suits our promise to deliver superior chick quality” states Joost Ter Heerdt, Commercial Director of HatchTech Group. “SetCare reduces embryo mortality, resulting in an increase of hatchability by at least 3%. Also, overall the number of 1st grade chicks increases, as do average chick length and quality, and improved FCR while a smaller hatching window ensures higher uniformity.”
The unique precision-control set-up of SetCare incubation environment enables a consistent extremely slow warming process (+0,1 °C per hour). Combined with carefully controlled humidity and CO2 levels, this provides a uniform and optimal incubation environment both for layer and broiler eggs.

When broiler chickens are busy fighting the parasitic infection coccidiosis, they can’t absorb nutrients efficiently or put energy toward growth. In addition to traditional medicine, new research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests diet changes might help.

In the experiment, described in a study published in the journal Poultry Science, the university research team the research team induced coccidiosis, and then altered the diet to understand the roles of various ingredients. The team adjusted the starch, oil, and amino acid content of the classic broiler diet and monitored body weight gain and feed conversion ratio.

“If you visualize a triangle, the three points represent diets with the highest starch, oil, and amino acid content,” doctoral student Julianna Jespersen explained. “We used varying proportions of those three ingredients to mix 10 experimental diets, one being a control diet with an equal proportion of each ingredient.”

The optimal diet mix — the diet leading to the highest body weight gain in coccidiosis-challenged birds — consisted of 35.8% starch, 8.9% oil, and 101.3% of recommended amino acids relative to the control diet.

The researchers acknowledge 9% oil inclusion is well above practical levels for the industry. “That level of oil is going to be hard for producers to fathom. But previous research from our lab has shown this parasite reduces lipid absorption in the gastrointestinal tract, so the birds can’t get as much energy or lipid components out of the diet,” said senior study author Ryan Dilger. The researchers acknowledge 9% oil inclusion is well above practical levels for the industry. Producers might look at that and laugh, but the bird is telling us why it should be that high for optimizing outcomes in disease-challenged birds.”

Jespersen says although it may not be feasible to include oil at 9%, the results show that increasing oil to any level above the usual 1% should be beneficial.

Chicken marketers need to start planning how to future-proof communications with the unique consumer expectations and needs of Generation Z.

“Our future consumer is really forging a new food future. What I mean by that is that they’re doing things differently from their parents in terms of food,” Michele Murray, executive vice president, Food Agriculture and Ingredient Practice, Ketchum, said. For example, 68% of Generation Z say they are cooking differently than their parents, with only 20% indicating that the way they ate as kids impacts the way they eat now. “We’re seeing a major shift in how this particular target audience, Generation Z is choosing their food, making purchasing decisions and their general attitude about food,” she added.

One of the biggest differentiators between Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, and previous generations is that there is a large part of this demographic that considers themselves food evangelists. This is likely due to their lifelong exposure to social media and the internet. “When we first identified this as a consumer segment back more than 10 years ago, 22% of the overall population fit into that food evangelist category,” Murray explained. “But for Generation Z, we found that over half describe themselves as food evangelists.” In other words, this demographic is highly interested in understanding more about food and sharing that food story with the people around them.

Generation Z is also highly value-driven when it comes to the food they purchase in terms of the environment. They also believe their food choices say something about them – from sustainability to body issues and even when it comes to certain political issues. They feel the weight of the world to make certain decisions about food and are judged by society. These are certainly aspects that cannot be ignored in the market communication of chicken meat towards a consumer segment that will soon represent a significant purchasing power.

Peroxide was found as the most effective egg wash sanitizer to both remove Salmonella from the shell’s surface and to keep the cuticle intact in a recent research study. “Salmonella is frequently found on hatch eggs even after they go through the sanitation process,” said Ted Brown, Cargill Global Food Safety & Scientific Services, at the 2024 International Production and Processing Expo. “So, we conducted research to find a sanitizer that is effective at reducing Salmonella on hatch eggs without damaging the cuticle.”

The study evaluated how multiple egg wash sanitizers, including thymol, peracetic acid (PAA), bromine, peroxide and quaternary ammonium, reduced Salmonella levels on the surface of inoculated eggs, without damaging the egg cuticles, when compared to an unwashed treatment. Specifically, the peroxide product was the most effective egg sanitizer, reducing Salmonella prevalence on the egg surface by over 73%. The thymol product was the least effective sanitizer and only reduced Salmonella prevalence by less than 5%.

Brown explained that the project was conducted to update producers on new and current egg wash processes. Currently, chlorine is the primary sanitizer used by breeders for egg sanitation in the processing plant, explained Brown. However, chlorine dissociates quickly in the presence of organic loads, can be corrosive to equipment and requires strict management to use effectively.

In the future, Brown said that he hopes to conduct an additional study to ensure that the hatch rate is not negatively affected by the sanitizers.

Calls for the European Union to deliver on its promised ban on the use of cages for farmed animals have been made by animal welfare charity Compassion in World Farming in its latest EggTrack 2023 report. The report shows that food companies are focused on providing a cage-free life for egg-laying hens, despite the ongoing challenges posed by avian influenza, inflation and the war in Ukraine. But it says that without their actions being reinforced by legislators, there will not be a final eradication of cages.

Such legislation, it argues, would broadly reflect consumer attitudes, pointing to the 1.4 million EU citizens that signed the ‘End the Cage Age’ initiative in 2020 and the 2023 Eurobarometer report which found that 91% of European believe that protecting the welfare of farmed animals is important and 84% saying animals should be better protected than they are currently.

During the year, 444 companies were monitored by Egg Track. Between them they have made 715 cage-free commitments of which 511 (71%) are reporting progress, with an average of 75% transition to cage-free eggs. They straddle all sectors: 51 manufacturers, 195 retailers and meal kit providers, 111 restaurants, 13 producers and 74 food service and hospitality companies are represented.

Figures differ across the globe. The highest average transition to cage-free eggs in Europe was 80%, while in the US it was 73% and in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region the figure was 57%. A total of 9 companies made new global cage-free commitments.

As regards legislation, France has banned the installation of new cages and all cage systems for hens are already banned in Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have enacted bans that will come into force in the coming years. The US is also making strides with bans on battery cages across 11 different states.

Poultry producers collect a lot of data. New technology that combines the internet of things (IoT), causal analysis and generative AI could put that data to work to help optimize decisions affecting bird health, production and overall profitability.

At the 2023 Poultry Tech Summit, Evan Sadlon, data science manager, MTech Systems, discussed how this technology could provide more accurate answers to questions such as: What are the effects of different pre-heating regiments on average daily gain?; How does the amount of starter per bird change the inflection point of the growth curve?; and, When should I be running different ventilation programs to minimize feed conversion ration (FCR)?

To illustrate what causal analysis is, Sadlon shared a chart that links drownings to watching Nicholas Cage movies. “According to this chart, all we have to do to save lives is bar Nicholas Cage from starring in any more movies,” he said. “How do we separate Nicholas Cage drowning people into actual causation? That’s what casual analysis is. It seeks to find what actions actually lead to specific outcomes.” Poultry producers can make the same mistakes at their farm with data collection. Sensors in the poultry house use IOT to collect information on a variety of factors, from bird health to environmental conditions within the house. But, without causal analysis, producers may not be able to actually use this data to help improve outcomes, he said.

The addition of generative AI can improve the decision-making process even more. This technology is commonly described as the next generation of artificial intelligence because it can build on the data it collects. Generative AI can help poultry data scientists build on and improve the coding and analysis that they use to make decisions about how the birds are raised and fed.