The Plukon Food Group has reached the production milestone of a half a million chickens per week raised in a more animal-friendly manner. This puts Plukon at the forefront of developments in organic, free-range and other concepts based on slow-growing chicken breeds.
The free-range chain in particular has undergone rapid development in the past six years. With a market share of around 70%, Plukon is the clear market leader in this segment. In addition to strong sales growth in the Netherlands, these products have now also become increasingly popular abroad.
Being awarded the one star label by the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals has certainly contributed to this success. To meet the requirements for the one star label, the 70 poultry farmers affiliated with Plukon have together invested around 10 million euros in a covered run.
In the meantime, the expansion of other customer-specific concepts (previously referred to as ‘Kip van Morgen’) has also been initiated. As a result, we see that regular chicken is being slowly replaced on shop shelves with breeds with a considerably lower growth potential. Plukon expects an accelerated rollout in this segment over the next two years and aims to play a pioneering role in this development.
The three-star organic chickens from the Plukon chain in the Belgian Ardennes have also experienced annual growth, though on a smaller scale. What these unique chains all have in common is a high health status. In the free-range chain, more than 99% of the animals are raised without the use of any medication.
For all concepts, Plukon is interested in poultry farmers wanting to make the switch to one of these animal husbandry systems.