PART 1: Hendrix Genetics/Joice & Hill talk market developments, genetic advancement and white layers

In the first of a two-part episode of the Sustainability Hub podcast, Tom is joined by two respected poultry experts from Hendrix Genetics, a leading company involved in multi-species animal breeding. 

In their most recent projections, Rabobank forecast demand for poultry and eggs to grow by 22% in the next decade, outpacing every other livestock sector.

From Teun van de Braak and Nick Bailey, we learn how Hendrix Genetics is rising to this challenge. 

With 30 years’ experience between them, Nick and Teun share their valuable insights into the pace of change in markets domestic and abroad. 

We hear how developments in animal welfare bring with them occasional conflicts, compromises or unintended consequences. 

A leading geneticist, Teun is now responsible the director responsible for technical services and customer support across the Hendrix Genetics world market. 

A frequent contributor to conferences and knowledge sharing events across the globe, Teun has an incredible knowledge matched only by his enthusiastic communication. 

Nick has led UK distributor Joice & Hill since 2008, and business is thriving under his leadership as Nick and team balance the needs of a diverse customer portfolio with the volatile market demands resulting from the anticipated move away from intensive production and the growing presence of white eggs on shelves. 

Amongst such turbulent times, Nick explains that Joice & Hill have also deployed a major environmental initiative, electrifying the company fleet and investing heavily in renewable energy, managing to reduce emissions by 8% during a period of double-digit growth. 

In a fast-paced conversation, the trio discuss everything from market segmentation, the undervalued pullet rearing phase, in-ovo sexing and, as a signpost to the second part of the podcast, the correlation between the meat industry’s slower-growing chicken transition and the layer sector’s adoption of white eggs. 
 

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the

(00:03):
sustainability hub podcastbrought to you by poultry
network. And firstly, a thankyou to our sponsors, to all
tech, to alanko, the UK agritechcentre, to trow nutrition, to
Moy Park and to Avia Gen. Today,I'm joined by another genetics
Titan, Hendrix genetics, andtheir UK distributor, Joyce and

(00:27):
Hill, and we're going tointroduce turn and Nick in a
moment. We've got to change ascene today. We're in
Peterborough, so it's it's anaway match, and we've left our
spiritual home of Chester, andwe're going to do things a
little differently today. We'regoing to split today's episode.
To split today's episode intotwo parts, starting with the
global picture in respect oflayer breeding and what

(00:50):
sustainability means in the inthe layer breeding sector. And
then we're going to have a deepdive into the world of white
birds white eggs, debunk a fewmyths and see where that
discussion takes us. So this ispart one.
Firstly, guests, please dointroduce yourselves. Turn Okay,
thank you for the invitation.
It's a pleasure to be here, andI'm turn van der black, working

(01:14):
for Henry genetics as the globaltechnical director for the
business unit for the layinghands background in genetics, so
that's what I will also betalking about during the
podcast. So pleasure to to behere and looking forward.
Fantastic. And Nick, yeah, soNick, baby, I'm the general
manager of Joyce and Hill, whichis the the layer distribution

(01:35):
arm of Hendrix genetics in theUK. So we supply around 1/3 of
the UK's laying hen population.
We're hatched here atPetersburg.
So my background is inbiochemistry, but I came via a
fairly circuitous route to thepoultry industry. I

(01:57):
was very interested in natureconservation, and try to start a
career in that, andthat was very difficult to get
funding. And so I do have aquite a sustainable background
in that, but things wentsideways, and I ended up in the
poultry industry. Once it's gotyou there's no letting go, is
there's no letting go? Well, Ifound anyways, yes, it's like a
hands grasp. It's verydetermined, you're going you're

(02:19):
going nowhere. And so for us,sustainability, massive, massive
topic, means all sorts ofthings. We'll come on to that in
a moment. But, yeah, the worldof breeding, I described you
earlier as a Titan, I don'tthink that's an exaggeration.
Really, there's, there's, if I'mnot mistaken, two main players
in the world of of poultrybreeding globally, and and

(02:40):
Hendrix, you know, one, one halfof of that pair, when we talk
about genetics, when we talkabout breeding, turn, can you
just give us a very simple sortof background as to as to the
process, what's involved, so tothe process itself? Well, the
world of genetics, many peoplealways think it's a very secret
world, and that is something wetry to open up our window blinds

(03:02):
a little bit to make it moretransparent in what we do today.
So this podcast also helps incontributing to the transparency
of our sector, because in theend, the only thing what we are
doing at the moment is trying toidentify the best animals in the
world of in our pure linepopulations, and trying to

(03:23):
identify the best animals and doselective mating. So really
mating the best male to the bestfemales and to more, more or
less safeguard that theiroffspring is better than the
current generation, to make surethat every time when we do a
selection, we are improvinglivestock to the desired

(03:44):
direction of the market. It'snot our direction. No, the
market decides on the direction.
And that's a really importantpoint, because, you know, what
we're creating here is not ourown flight of fancy. There's a
there's a massive drivingpriority, which is, you know,
meet the global demand for forfood, for protein, for for

(04:08):
animal protein, and do so withas efficient use of limited
resources as as possible. YouYou quoted some statistics to us
before we started recording, ithit us with the numbers. Yeah,
so Okay, well, if you look atthe latest Rabobank reports,
they predict that in the coming10 years, the global ag industry

(04:30):
will grow by 21 22% so thatmeans, if you look at the
figures, that's close to 1billion extra laying hens that
need to be there in order toserve the planet, that serve the
needs of the human population ina decade, in a decade, in the
coming decade. So that is, thegrowth is absolutely spectacular

(04:51):
and but also, if you look backto the past, the growth has also
been there. So it's we are everyday, in our day to day
challenges we need.
Address all the questionsrelated to the theme, there is a
growing demand, but the only wayhow we can supply the demand is
by doing it in a sustainableway. And the sustainable way is,

(05:13):
there's a lot of differentstakes around sustainability, as
you know, of course, yes, we arehere in Western Europe. Yes, we
are Western Europeanheadquarter. With our Operations
Headquarters in the Netherlands.
So animal welfare is definitelythere, but we operate globally,
so it's also a lot about dealingwith the limited resources that
we have available today. Sowe're also definitely working on

(05:36):
improving feed conversionratios, trying to breed chickens
that can cope with, so to say,lesser quality diets, more
byproducts in diets, etc, etc.
But also, we need to acknowledgethe fact that there are global
differences, there are regionaldifferences in the way that we
keep treat or animals, in ourcase, than laying hands, and

(06:01):
that also relates back to thefact that there's different
pressures around the globe. Sofor example, already here in
Western Europe, the diseaseprevalence is very much
depending on the poultry densityof the region. So for example,
the Scandinavian vaccinationschemes look completely

(06:22):
different. Barely any vaccine.
Is that, right? So Newcastledisease, and that's it, exactly,
well, a little bit more, butit's there's huge differences
already here on this part of thecontinent. So
does that that, if I'm right,that limits the age at which we
can sort of stimulate lay andstart to produce eggs, because

(06:42):
we've got to prepare a bird for,you know, a very complex
environment, and therefore we wetake longer to do that.
Absolutely. It takes longer todo so because during the past
decades, we've also shifted ourbreeding mentality from from
going towards preparing chickensas quick as we can in order to
produce the first eggs and asmuch eggs as possible. And at

(07:05):
the moment, it's really aboutthe whole idea is about making
sure that you're breeding a veryrobust animal that is able to
stay in a good condition as longas possible. Because if she's
able to stay in a very goodhealthy condition, she will be
much better able to produce morefirst quality eggs. And in the
end, wherever we are around theglobe, every customer we are

(07:28):
asking, what is it that youwant? What do you request from
us? 99% of the farmers will say,I'd like to get more first
quality eggs, hand housed out ofmy chickens. These are things
that would that benefit allmarkets. All markets are asking
for feed conversion, which meansless resources to produce those

(07:49):
eggs, the longer cycles benefit,the welfare benefits in Western
Europe, but also farmers inAfrica or Asia or Absolutely So
to that point, sorry, I wasgoing to ask, does that then
infer that there's actually notthat much difference between,
you know, the birds, the breeds,that, if I use the word
products, you know, thedifferent lines available in the

(08:11):
UK versus the rest of WesternEurope, versus, you know, the
states or Asia, are they allusing pretty well the same
few strains of bird, or is theremarket segmentation where you've
got, you know, a bird that hasbeen more acutely developed for

(08:34):
more precisely developed for ourclimate, for European climate?
Well, there is, there's twoones. So there is, of course,
the global solution that there'sone bird, one breed, or multiple
breeds that fill, fit, multiplemarkets, multiple breeds. There
are some regional differenceswhere we really have unique

(08:54):
breeds. For example, here the UKis one of those examples, which
is the part of the highersegment, the top niche of the
market, demanding a specialchicken in terms but mostly in
terms of egg characteristics andthe way the egg looks like, the
way it tastes, the way itbreaks, but especially the egg

(09:15):
shell colour itself. So that isa very unique market. But if you
look on the global scale, thenit's indeed a limited number of
breeds that is able to fulfil tothe market requirements. It
fulfils the requirements ofthose markets with the way that
we have bread and selected tochickens, because what I said
before, the goal for most eggproducers is the same. They

(09:38):
would like to get a sustainableincome out of their business,
and that is, in the end, sellingeggs.
And the more eggs they can sellfrom their livestock, the more
revenue, the better positionthey have. And in the end, as
long as the farmers can makemoney in our sector, all the
players in the market can get asmall share of the value added.

(10:00):
To the market as well, andbecause I don't think it really
lies with the consumer. Theconsumer is relatively ignorant
about the whole productionprocess. With we see it all
around the globe, the majorityof the consumer will never see
the chicken itself. They'reeither not interested in they
have no idea.
They just want convenience food.
They want to buy it in thesupermarket. While the whole

(10:22):
process behind it. There's amassive sector, the egg
industry, the global eggindustry. It's a massive
industry behind it, where we are1000s, well, millions of people,
day in, day out, trying to dotheir utmost to make sure
there's, I would say, thehighest quality of animal
protein available to the tableof genetics. It's not just
genetics, it's animal health.

(10:44):
It's animal health. What wealways, yeah, what we always
say, it's the phenotype,what we I guess most of the
owners know what a phenotype is,but, but otherwise that that's
the what you Yeah, the number ofnormally talking to other
people. Okay, sat in this chair,just for those of us that aren't
familiar. Okay, so you meanphenotyping is more or less all
the data that you areregistering from your flocks. So

(11:06):
the number of eggs they produce,the quality of the eggs, the
mortalities, feed consumption,water intake, fatty cover, et
cetera, et cetera. Those are allphenotypes and in the
characteristics, thecharacteristics of the breed,
and that is always aninteraction between the genetics
and the role of the environment.

(11:26):
So as Nick already mentioned,the management, the vaccination,
and especially the rearing inthese days is absolutely crucial
in the success of a laying henduring her lifetime. Its rearing
is absolutely plays a major,major role in that whole
process, whether producers canbe successful, yes or no. So
rearing super important,absolutely, absolutely we need

(11:49):
to see really today, rearing asan investment and not as a cost.
Yes, money is getting out of it,but it is an investment phase.
And I always say you can comparethe rearing of a laying hen in
weeks with with the growing upof men,
humans, so But then in years,and it's absolutely we need

(12:11):
those 1718, 1920, weeks,whatever it is, there is
variation around the globerelated to that, and also
depending on the housing system.
Of course, for cage free, youneed to invest more time in your
rearing, because it is reallythe training period of the bird.
How actually, as we keep handslonger as well. Absolutely,
absolutely so. So cut to thechase. UK, most of our listeners

(12:33):
will be in in the UK, and youguys, both of you, travel
extensively with with Hendrix,the parent company, and you'll
attend a lot of events, a lot oflot of people. Do you see? Do
you think the UK does a good jobof rearing generally, or are we
playing catch up? Thereneeds to be more investment, I
think, in multi level rearing aswe get more multi level farms.

(12:55):
But in general, the attention todetail in rearing in UK is
drastically improved over thelast few years. And if we, if we
were incredibly diplomatic, andI realised, as I asked the
question, that's akin to mesaying to you, to shop your
customers. So apologies toanybody rearing birds and the
inference of my question. But ifI said, Who does it really?

(13:16):
Really well, you know when, whenyou travel around. Who do you
see has the best rearing systemsor the right approach? I think,
in if you look at what'shappened in the Netherlands that
moved to multi tier, free rangeand Avery systems already, a
long time ago, they investedmore time in getting the rearing

(13:38):
systems right for those, forthose laying systems. And we've,
we've had a transition in the UKtowards free range, and at the
start that was mainly what wecall flat deck systems, which is
just a simple slatted deck withsome nest boxes on top. And now
we're in a situation where manyof the new free range houses
that are being built are onmultiple levels, which is great

(13:59):
for the bird. They move aroundand they they can get up on
perches and move away from birdsthey don't like, and all the
rest of the things. But thatdoes require some training in
the in the rearing period. Andturn is exactly right to say
that it's an investment period.
It's not, it's not a costperiod. If the ambition is to
match the rearing shed with thelaying shed. Then that

(14:22):
investment that you're talkingabout in the laying shed has
then got to be mirrored backdown the track in the rearing
farm. My experience ofworking in the commercial egg
industry and and havingconversations with the the
laying hen, your farm owners andmanagers is that, you know,

(14:42):
they're very focused on theirfeed price.
They're very focused on on on onegg yield. They are highly, sort
of motivated to spend less on apull it. But they're not.
Don't put so much attention intoexactly how that bird has been

(15:04):
reared, or, you know, theconditions of the rearing shed
versus the laying shed. And theprimary concern
not everybody, but many of themwould just simply be, could they
save a few pennies on the on thebird that arrives? That's, is
that just my experience, or isthat kind of, yeah, I think the
whole environment. Environment'scost price focus. So that's for

(15:25):
sure. It's been a verycompetitive industry over the
years, and people stand or fallon what they spend on cost of
production. And of course, it'seasy to shave a few pence off on
your purchases. It's less easyto determine what the value of
the extra spend that you make onthose purchases, whether it's
feed or whether it's the pulletthat people are buying, it's

(15:48):
much it's much more difficult toascribe success in the laying
period to spending a bit more onon the rearing feed and the and
the training equipment in therearing period.
And I think this is where wewant to talk about a little bit
about differences between whiteand brown birds. Because

(16:08):
certainly our experiences iswith white birds. They
especially some white birdsmove into the into new
situations and new layingquarters, much easier than some
brown birds do,and so we're seeing
things like floor eggs beingmuch lower with with some brands

(16:30):
of white egg layer than thanothers, yeah, and I think that's
an important point, and we spokeearlier about meeting demands
around the world, and the breedsthat Hendrix genetics breed
in brown, there's there's muchless variation between the
different strains of brown. Inwhite, we see quite a lot of

(16:52):
genetic variation, and we've gotsome white egg layers that are
extremely efficient in intensivesystems, but we wouldn't put
them on the Western Europeansystems of free range and Avery
but we do have some white linesthat are extremely well adapted,
much by chance as anything else,to yes to the kind of systems

(17:17):
that we're now seeing prevalentin Western Europe And
increasingly in the US,absolutely, absolutely and Well,
part of it is luck. Part of itis a very balanced breeding
programme behind it with a veryintensive field testing
programme behind it. So thatintensive field testing, where
we really have been selecting,already for decades, for
behaviour of the birds, and thenespecially more related towards

(17:38):
the aggressive behaviour, soselecting the social families
that will maintain good qualityegg production, those are the
families that you want toselect, and the ones that are
irritating each other, thecannibalistic families, the
aggressors, we try to selectthem out as much as we can. And
that is a very well. It has beennot a revolution, but evolution

(17:59):
and genetic evolution. It hasbeen a process of several
decades, and still today, as wespeak, we are testing all over
the globe. We are testing birdsunder field circumstances and to
make sure, to select andidentify those best those best
families. Is that has thattesting changed over time as we
go? Because I think aboutEurope, Europe's gone from

(18:20):
being,you know, largely intensive. And
when we say intensive, we meanprobably traditional cages then
replaced by enriched cages oror perhaps indoor cage free
aviary barn, you know, largescale populations to more,
depending on market. Marketdifferences are obviously going

(18:42):
to apply, but UK hugelydominated by free range, but
organic as well. In there, doesthat transition through the
different systems of productionalso bring with it a transition
in bird in breed that's betterequipped for those alternative
systems, or are we still usingmarket by market, the same

(19:03):
breeds we always have justtrying to apply a different
system? Well, you definitely seedifferences between breeds in
especially towards behaviour ina cage versus cage free
environment. Most often we wouldsay, okay, almost every bird can
cope in a cage house system, butthat is not the case for the
cage free housing. So there youdefinitely see that the market

(19:26):
is evolving into take up ofdifferent breeds. So for
example, there are some breedsthat are quite dominant here in
the European continent andnowadays also in the North
American continent, and less inthe markets where there's still
a lot of conventional cagehousing. So definitely, there is
a breed housing system type ofinteraction that you see, some

(19:50):
works, some don't work, and theones that don't work, you really
don't try to get into thosesystems again, because nobody
wants to see naked birds, youknow. So that is that.
At least something by testing,especially via intensive field
testing, we're also trying to dothat so that intensive field
testing, as you said, is notlonger only in small groups,

(20:11):
conventional cage housing. Now,nowadays it's also in aviary
housing, although that comeswith its challenges. It's group
house testing for chickens. It'sstill because of the size of the
business. We're not talkingabout only 100 or 200 chickens
on the total business. No, we'retalking about 16,000 32,000

(20:32):
64,000bird operations that we're
talking about. And that's whyI'm always, from genetics point
of view, very jealous on thecolleagues working on dairy
selection. And so dairybreeders,
they have a big animal wherethey can put a lot of sensors
on. And nowadays, for the vastmajority of all dairy cows, for

(20:54):
example, in the Netherlands,they all have the sensors. They
are all being milked with robotsas well. So you know exactly
from every cow, how much milkshe's giving, even how many
times he's chewing, also themoment when she comes into heat.
Everything is known now becauseof the sensor technology, but it
works when you have a big animalunder a roof where you only have

(21:15):
200 candidates, for example, forus, we are talking indeed about
the complex farms with 10,20,000 birds, and then RFID
testing. It's It's possible, butit comes with the challenges.
And it strikes me that theremust be some tension, because
you go, go back, certainly in myearly days, in the career, in my

(21:35):
in my egg career, I remembergenomics being an incredible
development, and acceleratingthe speed at which you could
identify, you know, thosephenotypes or the genetic
characteristics that werepreferred. And you know, no
longer had to run trial flocksfor, you know, full life cycles

(21:57):
to be able to make selections.
Whereas now, from what you'reyou're saying, I would interpret
that that accelerated choice is,is is great from a scientific
point of view, but it denies youthat opportunity to actually
look at the social andbehavioural aspects that are now
as equally important asproductivity, or, you know, some
of the other things that wemight have looked for in in

(22:17):
earlier selection process. Itdoes depend on the traits you're
looking for, and particularly onthe male lines. That's really
helping, because how do youevaluate the egg laying
performance of a male is youhave to wait for the offspring,
his offspring, to come intomaturity and their laying cycle
before you can attributetraits to him.

(22:40):
If you know that that male iscarrying a certain genomic
pattern that is correlatingstrongly with things like Shell
strength breaking shellstrength, or egg colour that
you're after, then you canalready make a pre selection on
those males on this absolutely,yeah, but indeed, well,
genomics, it only works when youdo and continue your full

(23:04):
phenotyping of all your birds.
So it's not reducing anyworkload on our breeding farms
or in the field testing farms,because genomics genotyping only
works when you have validphenotypes next to it, because
every time you need to validatethe whole snip chip set. So that
is an addition to the breedingprogramme. But indeed, the good
news is, and that's the benefitof running a laying hen breeding

(23:25):
programme, is genomic really hasan advantage for traits that are
later life traits, because youcan do an earlier more accurate
prediction about the performanceof the bird later on in life,
and that is why it'scontributing much more in the
laying hen industry compared toin the broiler industry, because
in the broiler sector, withinsix weeks, you already have all

(23:48):
your data available for us. Itstill takes today three weeks
before we have all the genomicinformation back after we took
the DNA samples and sent them tothe lab. So it's but on a life
cycle of 100 weeks, three weeksis not even significant. So it
therefore it really definitelycontributes greatly. And
especially as Nick told for themales, as the information indeed

(24:10):
they give themselves is limited,you need to wait for their
offspring. And especially if wewant to look at a trace at 100
weeks or 120 weeks of age. Thatmeans that the male at that
moment in time is 130 or 150weeks of age. So those are quite
old grumpy men. Imagine a threeyear old Leghorn mill or Rhode

(24:32):
Island mill. Those are quitegrumpy men. And from a genetic
when you look at the geneticformula, you would like to use
your parents for the nextgeneration as quickly as you
can, because therefore you canmake faster genetic progress
through the chain, but it onlyworks when you are selecting the
right candidates. So thatcombination of phenotyping in

(24:55):
combination with the genotypingthat really.
Is absolutely key. And indeed,with some of the social traits,
it's relatively lowheritability. So behaviour is
one of them. It's so it's moredifficult from us, because the
variation, the geneticvariation, is there for
something also limited. There'sonly so much you can do from a

(25:18):
breeding point of view. Andthat's always Well, I think it's
in every sector where you are.
So whether you are in feed,people tend to put the claim
towards the feed supplier. Weare in genetics, supplying
quality Dale chicks. Whenthere's something with the
chicken, they also try to blamethe genetics, of course, but but
in many behavioural traits, it'snot always the genetics to

(25:40):
blame, because it's mostly theresult of all the environmental
interactions with it. So it's weonly play a minor role in some
of those characters. So Tommy,we were asking earlier about as
we've changed production systemsin Western Europe,

(26:02):
towards more extensive systems,towards free range and organic
and multi tier. Avery systems,barn systems,
has that changed the way webreed? For sure, we are using
more floor based testing thanbefore. Some of the things we've
done in the past, such as thefield based testing, where

(26:22):
you're breeding forgeneral livability of lines in
field type environments areplaying out really, really well,
especially the length of thetime we've been testing those
birds, so 100 weeks in fieldtypes, type situations, and
that's really played out wellfor for the lines In these more
challenging, extensive systemswe have in Western Europe. But

(26:42):
as we look around WesternEurope, we've also changed which
breeds of chicken, inparticular, that there's move
from brown to white egg layers,and the white egg layers, by
happy chance, seem to be morecoping with those systems a lot
better than brown. And if youlook across different markets,
and then the Netherlands is aprime example, absolutely, when

(27:04):
they switch voluntarily with avan at retail level, in 2005
they switched from a lot offarmers, switched from brown egg
layers to white egg layers,simply because the white egg
layer was much easier to managein those types of systems. And
that's something that peopledon't talk about, is also, what

(27:25):
is it? What is it like for thefarmer? It's not just about, you
know, the metrics of farming,how many eggs have we got out of
each bird? What are the feedconversion is? It's also for the
farmer, in going into thosebarns that you experience, or
farm experience, the joy in yourday to day job, and especially
the breed choice contributes tothe joy in your day to day job,

(27:46):
and that is exactly the same forthose farmers and egg producers
all around the globe.
So the Netherlands is aninteresting case in point, and I
think I understand that thechicken meat industry in the
Netherlands, equally, have seena very rapid transition from
conventional to slower growingbirds, which suggests that you

(28:09):
know, in those supply chains,agriculture through to
processing and into into retail,there is sufficient
understanding, acknowledgementand respect of the value of each
of the participants in each, youknow, parts of the chain to, you
know, take account ofpreferences to allow change to
happen and to facilitate change.
Whereas I think I I interpretour market in the UK as being

(28:31):
quite resistant to that change,quite concerned about the
effects of competition,particularly, you know,
barriers, hurdles to making,making those changes. But what
about, what about the rest ofthe countries that also have
seen a transition from, youknow, one predominant colour of

(28:52):
egg to another is that driven byfarmers? Is that driven by
processes? Is that driven by bya consumer, and with what
motive? Okay, so what we seearound the globe, and especially
well in the Western world,where, where there's most of the
pressure on the producers, onthe market. So, and especially

(29:12):
related to the team of thispostcard, so the sustainability
hub, so trying to produce x in asustainable way. So that is
respecting the welfare of thebird, respecting the planet that
we live on. So with the limitedresources that we have,
responsible use of antibioticsand so on and so on and so on.

(29:33):
What we clearly see there isthat some in some of those
markets, the consumers are morewilling to listen and to adopt
the stories that the sector andthe supermarkets are telling to
them. And it's a matter abouttelling the truth, explaining
the true story about what is thecost of production, what is the
impact of a decision that youmake on the carbon footprint?

(29:56):
For example, some decisions arebe, tend to be more.
Welfare driven, especially herein the west. So, for example,
the slow growing the movetowards the slow growing
broiler, the better life. Onestar chicken in the Netherlands.
If you look at the wholesustainability aspects, it only
ticks the boxes on animal healthand animal welfare. It doesn't
tick the boxes on carbonfootprint, on efficient use of

(30:20):
resources. There, it ticks thebox very negatively. Yeah, 20%
larger carbon footprint, forexample, for the slower growing
broiler. But the good thing isabout that is the consumer is
willing to pay the extra price.
And prices in the Netherlands,for example, they went up for
five euros a kilogramme ofbreast filler towards, at the
moment, as we speak, 13 to 15euros a kilo, while the cost of

(30:46):
production is just 75 cents perkilo extra. So it's, in the end,
the biggest winner is thesupermarket in that case, and
that is the typical Dutchexample where the supermarkets
are driving the change based onthe pressure of the NGOs,
especially in the case of thebetter life chicken, it was the
pressure of Waka deer that camewith the term plovka, or

(31:07):
explosion chicken. Explodingchicken, yes, exactly. And by
naming, shaming, framing, theywere so successful, and it were
awful campaigns, absolutelyawful. But it also showed that
the sector didn't have ananswer. It wasn't showing it
didn't came up with within withtheir story. So that is also a
problem that we face around theglobe. We, as producers of high

(31:30):
quality animal protein, we arenot well equipped to show our
story to tell, our story, andwhile there is beautiful stories
to tell, yeah, it's a realshame. I think it's a real shame
on in that, in that particularinstance, it's a very narrow
take on sustainability andentirely focused on on a

(31:53):
perceived gain in an animalwelfare without considering many
other things, such as the carbonfootprint of the food we're
producing, such as the cost offood for working families to be
able to afford to feed valuableprotein to their kids, and
that's not considered. It's allanthropomorphic

(32:16):
judgement on the life of a farmanimal. Absolutely, yeah,
arguably, sort of bowing tobowing to some, some pressures
from some vocal people incertain places. And you know,
we're living in extraordinarilyfast changing times where some
of those sorts of ways ofthinking and decisions are
starting to be more and moreopenly challenged, and some

(32:39):
people being very radical interms of the reversal of that
sort of general, generaldirection, all debates have
become much more polarised andless nuanced. And I think that's
the danger of of the society welive in with with social media,
etc, is very easy to make snapjudgments about things. And in

(32:59):
life, everything's much morenuanced than it first appears,
I'm very, I'm very nervous ofpotentially slipping in to try
to put the world's rights, worldto rights with opinions on,
well, certainly my opinions onsocial media or things like
that, don't do it but,but I want to go back to plot
kit, to the slower growingchicken movement, European, UK.
I think that you know, both intransition or European further

(33:22):
ahead than UK, UK absolutely intransition. And the question is,
well, where's our food going tocome from? You know, how much
will be imported? As Nickrightly says, What are the
compromises? Because it strikesme that actually, in the egg
industry is the transition inour market from a brown egg
market to a more balanced ortoward a whiter

(33:50):
egg shell market, our equivalentto the slower growing chicken
movement. And and if it is, dowe not have the ultimate
message, because we don't havein the laying sector, and this
is the poultry network, so wemeet friends of the meat sector
as well. But in the layingsector, those compromises do not

(34:13):
exist. Actually, it's a win win.
It's a win, win, win. Tickingall the sustainability boxes
said the White laying in so andthere, there all the data shows
it today as well. So there'smore than 6%
lower carbon footprint of awhite egg compared to a brown.
So the data, it's all there. Soit's proven there, but it's

(34:34):
about, in the end, an industrycan only be viable and
sustainable is also the consumeris willing to adopt and willing
to pay the value for it. And inthe case of white eggs, we've
seen it with our own eyes. I'veseen it in the Netherlands, for
example, where they started tointroduce white egg, for

(34:55):
example, as the Premium Egg. Onebig example is the little
supermarket with the kipstercones.
That so introducing the mostsustainable egg on the planet,
that's at least what they claim.
So they introduced that egg, andthey were looking at the
reaction, the response of theirbuyers, and what did they saw
their public, the audience atlittle so a discount to
supermarket was willing to paythe premium price for a white

(35:18):
egg. And why was that? Becausethe story was there, and they
believed in the story, and thestory was fully backed up with
facts. I'm going to go evenfurther, and I'm going to also
declare an enormous conflict ofinterest here, as being someone
who works for kipster And so afully paid up member of a
believer in that circularfarming message. But I'd go

(35:39):
further and say that that thesupermarket in question is also
investing their marketing budgetin talking about selling kipster
eggs because of the strength ofthose, you know, sustainability
credentials. So yes, it's awhite egg. Yes, it's, it's, it's
different. And there arefeatures to do with the animal
around it. But there's alsofeatures to do with, you know,

(36:01):
crucially, the feed supply andthe use of waste and the respect
of the male chick as well as thefemale. But to see the
supermarket market eggs, wedon't, we don't see supermarkets
in this country spendingadvertising money on on eggs. Or
if we do, I apologise, but it'sa it's a fraction of a marketing

(36:23):
budget, but this supermarket didin the Netherlands, and it's on
a miniscule proportion of everyegg that they sell. Oh yes,
absolutely. And, and funnything, or the interesting thing,
was it was not only them payingfor it, also the NGOs were
paying for it. So they werereally out and open to the

(36:44):
public. They were congratulatinglittle and kipster, with the
concept, with with the firsteggs being produced, and
promoting even it, because theysay, okay, it does tick all the
boxes. And we shouldn't forgetalso the land use. Because,
well, I'm from the Netherlands.
I'm Dutch. Most of you know thatthe Dutch is one of the crowded,

(37:06):
crowded countries on the planet.
So our land is very limited, andtherefore also the price of
land, it's sky high. So and allour land, because we're in the
European Delta, is fertile. Youcan use it for farming as well,
or for housing or whatsoeverit's there's a value related to
that land. So, and you talkedabout in sustainability, the

(37:27):
importance of, you know, thebird being able to cope, cope
with alternative feedingredients. And where we're sat
today, you know, most birdsbeing farmed, will be fed on a
wheat soy combination diet. Andin different countries, you
know, wheat might be analternative cereal and but soy,

(37:48):
typically, globally, is going tobe, you know, prominent in the
in the protein source, yeah,whereas waste materials, co
products feel like this moresustainable direction of travel.
Does that? Do those dietspresent

(38:10):
a challenge to the laying hensin the same way that they do to
the to the meat sector birds whoappear to be on a, you know,
kind of much finer, tight rope,as far as you know, adaptability
to Exactly, yeah. So that's,that's the benefit of the laying
hens. They are better able tocope with what I would always
say, poor quality diets,because, indeed, the broiler

(38:33):
diet is one of the highestquality diets you can find in
the field of all animal farming.
It's very highly quality dietwith chickens, and that's also
part of our breeding philosophy.
We need to include more and morebyproducts, alternative sources,
feed sources, into the diet,because we know the pressure on
the use of soya, on the use ofpalm oil in this part of the

(38:55):
world, it's only growing. We nowhave the first declarations of
supermarkets that say, Oh, weonly allow the sourcing of soya
free eggs. And while we alsoknow, from a producer point of
view that soya is a wonderfulprotein, the chicken can
perfectly digest it, and it hasa beautiful amino acid component

(39:18):
makeup, so it's, in that sense,super foods to provide to the
chickens. But what we see byadjusting our pure line diets,
we are able to breed chickensthat are better able to cope
with diets with more and morebyproducts in it. And
if we are honest, there is notenough byproducts, or at least

(39:40):
leftovers from bakeries andpasta factories that you can
feed into the chicken diet. Sothe competition there is too
high, and luckily, the wastestream is getting less and less
because everybody in the wholefood chain is making
improvements.
But a chicken nowadays isrelative.
Really well capable to cope withthose. So that's a deliberate

(40:04):
breeding strategy, yes, but it'sa deliberate breeding strategy,
absolutely, to make sure that weare prepared for the future. And
that is what I always say. Thatis the because many people
always ask us, oh, it's sochallenging for you guys to to
sit there with your breeding inthe Western Europe, you're being
bullied away. And I said, Well,that's true. It's not easy to

(40:25):
maintain our breeding activitiesin the western part of the
globe. But on the other hand, wealways say we are in the middle
of the heat, so we have our eyesand ears open, so we know
exactly what's going on, so wecan much quicker, adopt or
breeding programme towards theneeds of this part of the
society, and we know how tobreed a cage chicken and

(40:50):
but by being in the middle ofthe heat, we also know nowadays
how to breed a cage free chickenthat is capable to cope with the
demands thatall the stakeholders are asking
in the future. Yeah, yeah. Wetalked a bit about egg colour.
We've talked a bit aboutimportance of rearing

(41:17):
on the on the, sorry. We'vetalked a bit about eggshell
colour. We've talked about theimportance of rearing the
adaptability of birds to dealwith perhaps changing diets in
the future. We're slightlyskirted around the topic of
welfare. I'd like to come backto where welfare sits in the
breeding programme. What are thethings that you're you know

(41:37):
you're able to change. What areyou measuring? What do you? What
do you what are the welfarechallenges of the of the future
in this market and and beyond?
When looking from the welfareperspective, it's all about
nowadays, about having a birdthat is resilient, robust,
which is social towards eachother, although, by nature,

(41:59):
chickens are not social. Theytend to be rather aggressive
animals. And that's also veryinteresting fact, where the
domestication of the chickensstarted with, it was not for
meat, neither for eggs. It wasfor cockfighting. And still,
that's a big business around theglobe today, all the
cockfighting that is there, butthat was where chickens
initially were kept for, fortheir aggressive behaviour. So

(42:20):
then we, more or less, we stilltoday, need to tackle those
characteristics which are thereby nature. Inside the chicken
genome, there are some quiteaggressive genes to overcome, so
especially the part of keepingbirds in very large groups. And
we know by research that onaverage, a chicken is able to

(42:41):
recognise about 100 otherchickens. But in today's
systems, well, minimum flocksize is often 2000 3000 6000
units, at least compartmentswithin the unit. So that means
for the chickens a lot of newfaces every day, every other
day. So there are things we cando to help them, absolutely, for

(43:01):
instance, now light technology,you're able to introduce UVA
light, which actually helps thechicken recognise other pen
individual hens. And that's UVAbulbs. I mean, there's a lot of
discussion now in the UKindustry about about natural
daylight, putting Windows on thehouses, but you put a plastic
window, and it acts as a UVAfilter, which is just the kind

(43:23):
of light you're trying tointroduce. So, but you can use a
UVA bulb to get to help the hen,to help the birds, to help the
hens, and especially lightingstrategies nowadays and so also,
especially in the aviarysystems, you can really mimic
dusk and dawn. Also have puttingthe right colours in to make
sure that the birds get calm,that never turn on the light.

(43:46):
Just switch on the light switch,because that will cause a lot of
stress for those birds. The waywe design the nests, privacy
when sufficient privacy whenthey produce the eggs. So I
always saynever save a penny on their
space. Those kind of things,very easy things, but, but the
birds today, from a welfarepoint of view, also the

(44:07):
feathering, of course, it'stheir first part of their
protection system. It's thefeather cover. So the better the
feather stays on, the better thequality of the feather pack.
It's will be easier for them tohave their thermal regulation
up and running. And it's also adefence part, so it protects

(44:28):
them also from exteriorchallenges. So to say so that is
a big part of it in bone healthis an important one in the end.
Well, for the producer, it'sthey want a healthy bird, and we
know ourselves fish related tobone health. Well, in the 70s,
80s, Cage layer fatigue hadosteoporosis. It was definitely

(44:49):
there. But fire breeding, wehave been able to take it out.
They have stronger bones, moremedullary bone, to make sure
that they are producing goodquality eggs.
Throughout their lifetime, andalso, therefore, when you look
at the past 2030, years, the eggweight curve, it has completely
changed. So the birds today areproducing quicker, larger,

(45:13):
medium or large size egg, whilethe number of extra large eggs
has significantly reduced.
Flatten. We have flattened thecurve, and that flattening of
the curve is really putting lesspressure, is lowering the daily
demand for that laying hen, soshe's better able to cope during
her lifetime. From a physicalpoint of view, better to cope

(45:35):
with egg production as wellprimary factors behind being
able to extend the life, theproductive life of a layer and
the healthy life of layer,absolutely, 70 weeks to 100
weeks plus. Yeah, controllingthe egg weight curves,
definitely one of them, andgenetics played a significant
role in that, because it is,there's a heritability of egg
weight of around Well, dependsper line, per breed, 45 to 55%

(45:57):
so that's quite significant.
They're the same with the bodyweights. Yes, from the 70s until
15 years ago, we definitely wentdown in body weight. But you
see, during the past 15 years,the body weight of the birds is
stable. Some of them even haveincreased slightly to make sure

(46:17):
that they also have somereserves left in case, when
there's a challenge, because thebird, with the productivity they
have today, they will producethat egg anyway. But we don't
need we should not squeeze thebirds, you know. So the reason
why you've kept feed intakelevels absolutely already stable

(46:37):
for many, many years now becauseyou don't want to squeeze the
intake levels of those birdsthat can challenge the the mate,
you know, the healthymaintenance balance of the
bird's physiology, if, well, ifthey're performing, then give
them exactly the fuel tocontinue. Will pay itself back.
It will pay itself back. Becauseotherwise, if you will give them
a crap your feet, the birds willcompensate themselves. They have

(47:00):
this biological feature that thebird can eat according to their
needs. So, and that's one clearexample. Is always, when you
have a naked chicken, your feedconsumption goes up
dramatically. So, you know youcan that they can eat 135 145
grammes a day. They are capableof doing so. No, it's not
preferred that they do so, butif they have lost all their

(47:23):
feathers, they need that energyto stay warm, to keep their
condition on. So it's there. Youclearly see that interaction
with the environment, and thatis definitely all those factors
play a big role in our breedingprogramme today. So it's really
bred today from the point of thelaying hen to keep her in a fit

(47:44):
condition all the way to theend. So that's why, also, in the
latest week of their life, whenthey are at our pure line farms,
we still measure the body weightto make sure to see okay, how is
the evolution, and did it becamesuper lean? So has skinny birds?
Or did it became super fedbirds, or did they stay in very
good condition? So those kind oftraits we all adopted into the

(48:08):
breeding programme to make surethat the birds today are capable
to withstand all the challengesin the fields that resilience,
isn't it? It's resilience. It'sresilience. And to come back to
what you were talking earlierabout kipster, there is a reason
why kipster have moved to whitebirds, where you've got

(48:28):
challenging conditions. You'renot big treating those birds,
you're feeding them by productdiets and and the strain of bird
that you use for those kipstersystems is is coping very well
with those pressures, and that'sthe benefit of having a broad
gene pool. And in particular inwhite we see a much broader gene

(48:49):
pool, and we're able to selectwithin that gene pool for birds
that really do cope with thosekind of challenges. And there is
a massive welfarebonus to moving
to white birds for that, forthat very, very reason. I don't
want to cut you off on mid flowthere, but we are going to come
back after the break, and we'regoing to talk about white in

(49:09):
detail.
As we know, I'm a big fan. I'veput in an email somewhere this
week. I'm a massive fan layinghen welfare forum. We're
conducting a survey, and Paula.
Big shout out to Paul Paula sentme an email and saying, Can I
help with this? I sent it toevery farmer I know that's got
whites, because I don't justthink, you know, we just need to
get on board. But, yeah, we'regoing to talk about, we're going

(49:31):
to talk about what we can't talkabout sustainability with, with
without talking about carbon andNick I want to talk a lot about
breeding. Let's just talk abouthatchery for a minute, because
you've had a bit of news. In thecourse of the last fortnight,
you've done a lot of worklooking at the sustainability of
your distribution business, andI wonder if you could just sort

(49:51):
of explain to us what you'vebeen doing. So we chose egg base
because we worked with egg baseon other projects such as the
data collection.
Action, which is very importantfor feeding back to the genetics
department about how well thebirds are actually performing in
the field. A lot of very usefuldata there to capture.
So we chose egg base to to do ascope one and two assessment on

(50:15):
the hatchery.
We have made some some steps interms of investments in the
hatchery over the last three orfour years. So we set a baseline
of 2020and since that 2020 baseline,
we've invested in solar panels.
We've invested in renewableenergy in terms of heat pumps,

(50:35):
etc, and we've also done someelectrification of the sales
teams fleet,and those are really struck
benefits. I believe the scopeone and two emissions have come
down by 8% but during thatperiod, we've also done produce
more. Hence. So the 2024,readout on carbon footprint per

(50:56):
chick is actually a fallingof 17% 17% less. Carbon to
produce the same day. Or Jake,yeah, the numbers are fantastic.
Is there more to go? Is thereanything that you can, you can
do? What's your what's youroutlook? I think so, yeah. I
mean, we obviously going tobring in scope three,

(51:17):
I think with the and obviously,feed is not our area of
speciality, and you'll probablydo a separate podcast on that.
But the the improvements in feedover the years, especially use
of enzymes, etc, has reallyreduced that carbon footprint
again, yeah. I mean stepwise,step wise, it's gradual process.

(51:40):
Yeah. I think the other bigthing on feed, of course, is
thatis that balance, a lot of carbon
footprint in feed comes from theland use change, in particular
of soil, and that's somethingwe're challenged with in Western
Europe, where it's become veryimportant concept.
And I think you know, if youlook at North American Sawyer,

(52:01):
it's lower carbon footprintbecause it hasn't got that land
use correct thing in there. Butof course, if everyone switched
to North American Sawyer inEurope, then that that Brazilian
soil would still go somewhereelse, and that what the good
thing that's happened in SouthAmerica is starting with the
with the change to GM,GM free soy.

(52:24):
The supply chains in SouthAmerica were adapting to
segregated supply chains, andthat. And what we're seeing now
in South America is, is they'reable to segregate land use
change soy as well, so thatthere is some some benefits to
what's happened in the past.
It's not just about soy. I thinkis what I would want to remind
people, if I could, if I couldtalk to anyone, it would be a

(52:45):
retailer. We'd love to get asupermarket on here and say,
Look, why? Why can you guys notgive a signal to the market to
say, we want x percentageinclusion of a UK grown protein,
peas and peas and beans? Why?
Why are we not saying to to, youknow, to the feed mills or to
the supply chains that go rightthe way back to an arable

(53:07):
grower, get peas and bees in theground, then let's have birds
please turn that are capable ofof living on a proportion of
these peas and beans that thatactually get us out of processed
animal protein as well. That'sbeen banned for many years in
the UK, so consultation underwayat the minute. Isn't there? And
the people I talk to, and I'veheard different views, but

(53:28):
people I'd talk to are veryconfident that that will be, you
know, legalised again in therelatively near future. Not the
whole answer, but it's there.
But that's got to be it, hasn'tit? A compound, you know, let's
have 5% meat and bone meal.
Let's have 5% UK grown protein,and suddenly our soy requirement
is low single digit, if, ifanything to come back to the to

(53:49):
what we can do on chicks, youknow, there are still moves that
we can make. There are thingsthat we can do further, wind
turbines, of course, but alsothings like smart motors. We've
got a lot of motors in thehatchery, and the historically
old motors were either off oron, and now you see many more

(54:11):
companies investing in smartmotors that have infinite
variable speed on the on themotor. So we've got things like
fans in the hatchery, which, ifyou if we transferred all of
those motors to smart motors, Ithink we can gain some savings
there. I mean, they're moreexpensive to buy, so it's an
investment again. But I thinkthose kind of technologies will

(54:31):
come along and that we're seeingthose in other industries. I
think one of the reasons whyhaven't done it yet is the
company we were talking to is sobusy installing these smart
motors into people like RollsRoyce, that we're kind of low
down the food chain. Yeah, well,from, from what I've seen, the
work that you've done so far, Ijust think it's absolutely
fantastic. So yeah, the tapemight take my head off again.

(54:52):
It's all win win stuff, isn'tit? I mean, you know, like the
the conversation we're havingabout about egg layers being
you.
You know, becoming more and moresustainable with with very
little downside in terms of whatthey're doing. But, you know,
improving the the energyefficiency of your operations is
a win win. I mean, it lowersyour cost, and it improves the

(55:14):
environment, and it's just a winwin all around, right? Yeah. Let
me take you to anothertechnology that could come into
the hatchery that may result inyou needing to hatch less
chicks. There I mentioned thewords in ovo, sexing, and I
wonder between you, I mean, turnagain, looking, looking at the

(55:35):
European market that appears tohave made its call. And many,
many hatcheries, if not mosthatcheries, oh, no, not most.
No, no, no, no, no. So it's butthere's definitely a trend going
on that in Western Europe, whereit all started, the hatcheries
are adopting the Innova sectiontechnology. So for example,
Germany is there, France isthere, Norway is there,

(55:55):
Switzerland is there. TheNetherlands is well, it's all
the hatcheries are equipped withit, but it's still there. Is
not. Well, two weeks ago, theyalso announced there's now the
market commitment to adopt it,but it's not by legislation, and
we dare see quite somedifferences between the EU, EU
member states. And that's whythere's no common goal, common

(56:19):
date, common legislation aroundit,
which is sometimes resulting inthe fact that it's yeah, there's
a lot of question marks. There'salso a lot of big differences
between the different EU memberstates. So for example, in
France, you only need to applyit for brown chicks.

(56:40):
You need to do it before day 15.
For example. While in Germany,it was very strict, and they had
the goal to go before day fourof the incubation process. Then
they found out, well, at thisstage in time, it's not going to
happen because it are relativelynew technologies, and there is
still so much furtherdevelopment going on that, yes,

(57:01):
there are some technologies thathave been implemented, but it's
a lot of trial and error. Andtherefore, the benefit for the
UK market is, if you can wait abit more, you will be able to
adopt better technologies inyour hatcheries, which are much
better accepted by the marketitself, because we already had,
in the first newspapers,embryo abortion. So it's the

(57:25):
whole discussion of culling amale chick. I'm not surprised.
Go back to that French statisticthat you've just said, day 15.
You know, brown birds only forbrown Scots for the whites, and
incredible. And then all thesexing errors that you come
across you can still kill at dayold in the hatchery. So it's

(57:48):
while in Germany, you're notallowed to kill any of sex. So
it you need to grow all yourmilk chicks that are being born
as well. So there is so muchdifferences between the
continent, and that is not veryeasy. And therefore, and also
what I see about, for example,the Select technology, the

(58:09):
developments they are making,they are now at the third or the
fourth module, because the firstdevices required a lot of human
input. A lot of labour wasinvested with that as well. And
we all know in the blue collarjob all across Western Europe,
the difficulties to find bluecollar workers, people willing
to work in a hatchery and andthose are all those kind of

(58:33):
challenges that the good thingis, they are being overcome. So
there's new innovations comingalong that the technologies are
further and further beingdeveloped. But I guess that
comes with risk, doesn't it? Ithink if I, if I take a, take a
step, step back and think, youknow, 10 years ago, it in ovo,
sexing would have been,you know, laboratory, possible

(58:55):
scientific dream, a bit of a bitof a Nirvana, and
not not commercial, and to seewhere we are now, whereas you
say most hatcheries have gotsomething installed, it may be
different technologies. It maynot be for every, every hatch
that they're using it, butthat's that's quite some speed

(59:19):
of development. But I guessthose early investors, sorry,
the early investors haveprobably taken an enormous risk
with high, high capital costthat could quite quickly become
out of date if the technologymoves on. This is a classic case
of legislators being pushed byan extremely vociferous minority
lobbying group into makinglegislative changes that had

(59:41):
unintended consequences. And I'mwholeheartedly for solving this
question. I think there will bea, in a way, technology that
comes along in the short termthat will provide a very good
solution. I think the solutionsthat have been.
Forced to be implemented inthose countries where they've

(01:00:03):
had the legislation have hadsome very negative consequences.
In Germany, for instance,several of the small, very nice
hatcheries went bankrupt becausethey could not afford to
implement in over sextingtechnology. Still 30% of males
hatched in Germany, Iunderstand, are exported to

(01:00:24):
Poland to be grown from meatthat nobody wants. So there are
some very unintendedconsequences with that, and the
technologies that areimplemented still have
significant downsides.
They're either very slow andinvasive or you can't do them
earlier than 12 days. And therewere levels of accuracy

(01:00:45):
questions there, from what Iunderstand from my French
colleagues, so, and they're veryenergy intensive, so using an
MRI scanner in the hatch ratedto determine the sex, I mean,
that raises some ethicalquestions. If you can afford an
MRI scanning, why would you notput it into a hospital? Why
would you put it into a chickenhatchery? I mean, it's crazy.
It's the other thing is, ofcourse, it raises the cost to

(01:01:08):
the consumer. And we're talkingabout a very important food
staple here. I mean, eggs wouldprovide a very low cost protein
to working families. And we'reseeing this pushback happening
in Europe against so calledsustainable policies that are
basically put pushing up cost ofliving for for small families,
and that's very easily jumped onby populists, yeah, and saying,

(01:01:31):
Well, we should push backagainst the whole lot, and you
risk throwing away all of theSustainable gains that we're
trying to make for the sake ofrushing into a technology. And I
really think, I feel stronglythat in the UK scenario, we
shouldn't jump into technologyjust because a couple of
announcements have been made inEurope that it is technically
feasible to do some level of inavo sexing. I think we should

(01:01:53):
wait until we have a propersolution that is early that you
can gain an actual benefit fromconsumers in terms of the cost
of production, and does awaywith this problem of male chicks
coming into life and beingeuthanized straight away. I
mean, the other thing toconsider, of course, is in the

(01:02:16):
UK, we're a net import for malechicks, so we have a lot of
people who keep raptors andreptiles who that need that
whole food. And if we, if westop supplying that market with
male chicks, then something elsewill be brought into life, back
to your unintended consequences.
And what do we enforce? Yeah, wedo. And those, and that will be
probably an entirely unregulatedfood chain. And already in the

(01:02:36):
Netherlands, they're raisingmice in cages to supply a
market. It's crazy. It's aninteresting discussion, and I
guess it serves as a useful fullstop on the conversation that
we've had in part one, becauseit shows just how nuanced and
how often conflicted the topicof sustainability can be, I

(01:03:00):
think my take from, from, youknow, our conversation today is
breeding is enormouslycomplicated, and that it isn't
just in a laboratory and a sniphere and a decision there and
away you go. It's, it's a very,very long term project, and the
physical characteristics ofbirds take time to develop, and

(01:03:22):
the science is just part of itthat actually the egg industry
has got some very, very strongsustainability credentials, but
also untapped potential in inour market, in the UK, to step
up to that global challenge turnthat you talked about with, with
the 22% additional volumerequired over the course of of

(01:03:46):
the next decade, we've talked abit about market segmentation
and and precise needs of themarket and the tensions that
come with with welfare. So it'sbeen a fascinating conversation.
Nick and turn, thank you so muchfor joining us today. We're
gonna be back in a minute. We'regonna talk about white eggs, but
for the moment, that's the endof this episode. Again. I'm

(01:04:08):
gonna quickly thank oursponsors, Elanco, Alltech, UK,
agritech centre, Moy Park, AviaGen and trow nutrition. I've
been Tom willings, and you'relistening to the sustainability
hub podcast brought to you bypoultry network. You.