Kevin Thompson has won election to be the representative for
the Further Processors Association of Canada at the Chicken Farmers of Canada’s
board of directors.
He replaces John Slot of Moorefield who has a long
involvement in chicken-industry politics and in recent years has been spokesman for
the Ontario Independent Poultry Processors Association.
Thompson was head of the Association of Ontario Chicken
Processors, which represents the large-volume chicken processors, then went to
work for Sargent Farms, a relatively large-volume chicken processing company
based in Milton. He was also once a senior employee of the Ontario chicken
marketing board and an employee of Maple Lodge Farms Ltd. of Norval, the
largest chicken processor in the province.
Thompson’s election came in the midst of a long battle
between small-volume independent chicken processors in Ontario and the
large-volume processors.
The small guys want more chicken to expand their niche
markets. The large-volume processors want to keep chicken production down so
they can keep prices up and never have trouble moving inventories.
The big processors approach has led to rationing of chicken
among processing plants, a ban on trade in live chickens between Ontario and
Quebec, and a lack of chicken for the Ontario kosher and Hong Kong dressed (feet
and heads left on) in Ontario.
The chicken-rationing system and the ban on live-chicken trade
with Quebec are both intended to eliminate premiums processing companies were
offering to get more chickens.
The chicken-rationing system has given rise to a value
placed on the processing-plant right to Ontario-grown birds. That, for example,
is how Chai Kosher Poultry of Toronto made a windfall profit by selling out to
Sargent Farms. However, Sargent Farms does not process to kosher standards, so
that market had only one Canadian source left, a plant in Montreal that was
unable to keep up with demand so hiked prices.
The Ontario chicken marketing board is currently calling for
proposals to serve the kosher market.
A big question remains, however, whether the Ontario board
will take chickens from all Ontario processors to meet the kosher-market demand
or will await approval from the national agency to grow more chickens to meet
the kosher-market demand.
That’s one of the issues Thompson will be pondering as a
director of Chicken Farmers of Canada representing the Further Processors
Association of Canada.
