Poultry International

Ukrainian poultry industry
ready for EU expansion

From being a non-
essential industry
during the Soviet era,
Ukraine’s poultry
industry is now braced
to play a greater role
on the world stage.

The Ukrainian poultry industry is steadily growing. Not only are the volumes of domestically produced poultry meat expanding, but the country has been granted long-awaited approval to export its poultry meat to the European Union.

Following lengthy negotiations with the EU, the Ukrainian government has agreed to the establishment of a free trade zone, meaning that, starting this year, the country could export to the EU up to 20,000 metric tons of frozen chicken carcasses and 16,000 metric tons of processed poultry products. As part of the agreement, by 2017, quotas on the export of processed poultry meat will be increased to 20,000 metric tons.

In addition, Ukraine will be able to start exporting to the EU 3,000 metric tons of shell eggs, and 3,000 metric tons of egg products.

The agreement is a major achievement for the Ukrainian poultry industry, which had been excluded from the EU market due to comply with European requirements.

Dneprodjerjiskaya poultry farm, one of the country's oldest.

Beyond the EU

Chairman of the Association of
the Union of Poultry Farmers of
Ukraine, Oleksandr Bakumenko,
commented: "Of course, we wanted
more, but even such results are
very good for the Ukrainian poultry
industry, providing an opportunity to
gain a foothold in the EU market.”
In addition to the EU, Ukrainian
poultry producers are considering
expanding into other foreign markets,
particularly Iran, where, according
to Yuri Kosyuk, head of MHP, one of
Ukraine’s largest poultry producers,
the total number of potential
customers is estimated at more than
80 million. The country is also looking
to enter the Jordanian market and, of
course, neighboring Russia.

Opportunities at home

At present the per capita poultry meat production in the country is estimated at 24 kg. Most local analysts believe that this can easily be increased, taking into account that the consumption of poultry meat in Ukraine is currently still below the average and considerably lower than in the EU and the U.S.