Poultry Marketing Meeting Do we need to work together? Friday January 31 st at 7 pm CCE Learning Farm State Rt 68, Canton, NY

Speakers Lynda Brushett – Cooperative Development Institute Sue Rau – North Country Grown Cooperative Renee Smith – USDA Mobile Processor Dan Livingston and friends – Wholeshare Betsy and Brent – CCE St. Lawrence

Webinar – how it works Speaker will talk As the host I will mute most people I will ask for questions and comments from meeting groups and then individuals. You can write in the chat box or “raise your hand” if you want to talk and I don’t notice you.

Why are we meeting? Can we work together to supply markets? Do we need a cooperative entity or just to cooperate? Can we work together to use the USDA processing efficiently? Can we work together to purchase chicks or feed? Can we work together on storage? What about pricing/income

Lynda Brushett Cooperative Development Institute – New Hampshire Why would we want an actual cooperative versus just cooperating?

Sue Rau – Manager NCGC Helping us market out CCE chickens What does the co-op do for us and how does that affect our pricing What the chefs want versus what we have… Storage

Renee Smith – NCP USDA processing Unit How do we schedule amount of birds over the summer and fall? How far ahead can we schedule? Will the unit be available in other areas?

Dan Livingston - Wholeshare Dan will talk on the web and then local people will answer questions – Renee Goodnow, Scott Miller What is wholeshare? Could a group of producers work together to supply wholeshare products? Storage and shipping?

Betsy and Brent –CCE updates What happened with the hoophouses Some numbers What we learned about marketing

Some Production Numbers from the hoophouse project Preliminary data – averages don’t make that much sense because the time of year is different and chicken sizes are different, etc, so we will share some raw data with you. One more round in the spring. Feed and Processing are the big costs Transport and storage are the hidden costs

More comments: Fixed costs like processing, transport, labor don’t change much with the size of the chicken you sell 3-4 lb birds require a higher price per pound than bigger birds to cover fixed costs. 5 pounds and up are a better deal for the producer if we can find markets for those.

Feed Costs Most were lbs per pound of chicken sold We had one that was 3.8 Feed costs were $.21 to $.33 with several about $.25/lb $.71 to $1.09 worth of feed/lb of chicken sold Total feed costs ranged from $700 to $1200 depending on the number of chickens, death loss, grain costs, number of weeks chickens were kept (size/age), etc.

Processing costs: Cost per lb of chicken sold ranged from $.44 to $1.07 Varied by place of processing Varied by the size of chicken – higher price per pound are smaller chickens Millers, Red Barn Meats, NCP Don’t forget transport costs – two trips – one to drop off and one to pick up.

Death Loss: Range from 5 to 10% but we had on that was 25% due to the weather and coccidiosis.

Size of chickens sold:.66 of live weight approximately Range within the group Hard to pick out chickens of a certain size Some around 3.3 lbs – some young, some small due to the cold Some 4-5 pounds and some 5-6 pounds

Discussion: Questions for the panel?