Chicken, egg sales hit by fresh flu outbreak

A second bird flu outbreak in West Bengal has derailed the efforts of poultry units to get back daily sales levels prevalent before the outbreak of the epidemic in many districts of the state.

The poultries were yet to recuperate from earlier losses pegged at not less than a total of Rs 500 crore by the state government itself.

The epidemic first broke out nearly three months ago.

In a parallel development, Anisur Rahaman, animal husbandry minister of West Bengal, confirmed today that the bird flu virus was found in chickens which had died in the central Bengal district of Malda a few days ago.

Sales in both organised and unorganised poultry firms have dropped over the last three days.

According to Kajal Dutta, president of Kolkata Egg Merchant Association, egg sales have dropped by 75 per cent in Kolkata in the last three days.

"In prevailing weather conditions, and in the coming summer months, the poultry market will remain bearish," he said.

For Amrit Fresh, one of the largest local poultry units in West Bengal, daily sales have dropped by 50 per cent in the last three days.

"We supply processed chicken to the canteen operators of IT companies like IBM and Cognizant. However, these companies are in two minds for consuming poultry items. As a result, against average sales of 1,000kg per day, poultry sales have dropped to about 600kg per day," admitted Sanjay Mitra, assistant general manager""sales and marketing, Amrit Fresh.

In case of Arambagh hatcheries, which supplies processed chicken to hotels like the Oberoi Grand, Hyatt, Peerless Inn, along with fast food chain KFC, there was no significant change in sales, as hotels and restaurants have not stopped serving chicken, unlike in the case earlier bird flu outbreak.

Average sale of processed chicken per day had dropped by around 25 per cent, admitted sources from the Arambagh Hatcheries.

Sales of live chicken had dropped across the board as bird rearing was yet to take off in most districts of the state following the culling operations.

A company like Arambagh Hatcheries had however managed to get back to 80 per cent of the average sales level prevailing prior to the outbreak of bird flu and the subsequent ban on sale of poultry items.

The bird flu outbreak was a huge setback to the poultry sector of West Bengal, as it was growing at the rate of 25 per cent annually, with a cumulative investment of Rs 2,000 crore, said Madan Mohan Maity, chairman of the state National Egg Coordination Committee and secretary of the West Bengal Poultry Association.

The total consumption of chicken in West Bengal was close to 10 lakh kg, per day.

The organised poultries produced about 40 lakh chickens per week.

There were about 60,000 organised poultry farms in West Bengal and an unaccounted number of households rearing chickens for the market with support from the many anti-poverty schemes of the state and central government.