The Dairy industry is the biggest consumer of compounded feeds, approximately 50% of the total feed tonnage. Broilers are 4.9%, layers are 4.1%, so together the chicken fed consumption is 9.0% of the total feed consumed in Canada.
The animal feed industry in Canada is going through many changes. Mergers and acquisitions are the name of the game today.
Animal Nutrition Canada claims to have the largest share of the feed production market, 23% of the Canadian total. They sell under the brands Shurgain, Landmark, Nutreco, Mapleleaf.
Other major feed players are:
- Ridley, with Masterfeeds, AGP Co-op
- La Coop Federee
- Cargill, with Provimi, Hi-Pro, Purina, Nutrena
- Viterra
- Glencore
Typical feed cost for chickens is about $384 per metric tonnes ("MT"). As calculated previously on this Blog, if chicken feed has increased by 60% during the same period that cat & dog food increased 20%, that means that there is an excess charge for chicken feed of $96/MT.
With poultry eating a total of 2.12 Million MT per year, that is a total gouging of $203.52 Million per year. The farmers gladly pass those excess costs onto their suppliers, who mark it up further as it works its way down to the lowly consumer. Assuming 40% markup at the producers level, and another 40% at the wholesale/distribution level, the gouging approaches a total of $398.9 Million per year.
Poor consumer. When will we get relief from all of this economic sludge being poured down our throats?
