Wageningen Economic Research, an independent research institute of Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, presents the results of a study on the competitiveness of the EU poultry meat sector. The production costs for poultry meat are calculated for several EU and non-EU countries.
In this updated study, the base year for the calculations 2017. The report is an update of two earlier reports with base year 2015 (van Horne, 2017) and base year 2013 (van Horne and Bondt, 2014).
Key Findings:
EU poultry meat producers have to comply with legislation on environmental protection, animal welfare, food quality and food safety. This legislation has increased the production costs of poultry meat. At the same time the European Union (EU) is negotiating with other countries or groups of countries to liberalise trade in agricultural products. This report examines how lowering import levies impacts the competitiveness of the EU poultry industry. The results show that the offer price of broiler breast fillet in 2017 of some third countries was already equal to or just slightly higher than the average EU price. Despite the current import levy on breast fillet, Brazil and Ukraine can compete on the EU market. In a scenario with 50% lower import levies Brazil, Ukraine and Thailand have a lower offer price for breast fillet than the EU poultry meat industry.
The full report can be found here: WUR report 2018-116 Competitiveness EU poultry meat PvanHorne_def