Surging chicken feed costs clip wings of Armagh poultry processing giant Moy Park

Soaring chicken feed costs helped to drive down profits by more than half last year at Moy Park, the Armagh-headquartered poultry group that is also the biggest private company in the North.

The company, which is ultimately controlled by Brazilian meat giant JBS, recorded a near 5 per cent rise in revenues last year to £1.53 billion (€1.8 billion).

However, Moy Park’s directors blamed “unprecedented” rises in feed, as well as energy and labour costs, for a 58 per cent drop in its operating profits to £36.1 million, according to accounts recently filed. It suggested the financial performance was helped by the reopening of the hospitality industry in many countries following the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a report attached to the accounts, the directors flagged further inflation in its cost base this year due to the war in Ukraine. The eastern European nation and Russia, its invader, are among the world’s biggest grain exporters and interruptions in supply have further driven up agricultural feed costs in 2022.

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Despite the dip in profits, Moy Park resumed significant dividend payments this year to its shareholder. JBS controls Moy Park via the US-listed food group, Pilgrim’s Pride, which is listed on the stock market in New York but 80 per cent owned by JBS. Moy Park paid its shareholder an interim dividend during the year of £50 million, the accounts show.

Almost 10,000 staff

The company employed an average of 9,675 staff during the year across nine facilities in Ireland, Britain and France, where it has 728 staff. It breeds poultry, mainly chickens, and also turns the birds into food products for major supermarkets such as Sainsburys and Asda, and also restaurant chains including McDonald’s and Burger King. It also manufactures beef and pork products, as well as vegetarian dishes and desserts.

A note to the accounts says that the group processed more than 272 million birds last year, marginally ahead of 2020. At the end of the year, it held almost 30 million live birds, or “biological assets” in its facilities that it valued at more than €59 million.

The accounts suggest that Moy Park’s company president, former Greencore USA chief executive Chris Kirke, was paid just over £1 million last year by the poultry company.

JBS bought Moy Park seven years ago for £1 billion from fellow Brazilian company Marfrig. Two years later, it transferred the Northern Ireland company at a similar valuation to Pilgrim’s Pride, which itself is 80 per cent owned by JBS.

Last year, JBS launched a bid to buy the remaining 20 per cent it does not already own of Pilgrim’s Pride, which would have put the Irish company back in 100 per cent Brazilian ownership. However, it abandoned the proposed transaction earlier this year.