It’s the first program of its type for a supply-management
marketing board.
The New Entrant Chicken Processers Program was
established to ensure that new enterprises wishing to process chicken in
Ontario and address market opportunities would be able to do so following a
successful application process, the board says on its website.
The new program makes up to 100,000 kilos of
calculated base available to successful new chicken processor applicants each
year.
Processors need “calculated base” to buy chicken
because there’s not enough produced in Ontario to satisfy the full demand of
all processors. The board therefore rations supplies among processors, usually
on a historical market-share basis.
That, however, is beginning to change as the marketing
board implements several new programs to encourage farmers to produce chicken
for specialty and niche markets.
“Each year CFO will advance a strategic market to be
served by an approved new entrant processor. For 2016, CFO has designated
Organic Chicken as the target strategic market segment,” the board says.
“CFO recognizes that all our programs must be
appropriate to the evolving growth markets they serve,” said board chairman
Henry Zantingh.
“The ability to make more production capacity
available to a new entrant processor should help lead and drive new growth
opportunities in the province.”
The board’s president and chief executive officer, Rob
Dougans, said “a key element of the New Entrant Chicken Processor Program is
the ability of the board to direct processing to an area of strategic growth.
“This program enhancement will increase the overall
flexibility of the system and ensure that new processing development is more
closely aligned to emerging market needs whether they are domestic or
international.”
