Four months after the poultry industry saw its biggest peak in turkey sales at Christmas and New Year, the sector noted that currently 40% of turkey meat production comes from fertilized eggs produced in Ecuador, a process that began in 2020 with the breeding of breeding birds. , according to the National Corporation of Poultry Breeders of Ecuador (Conave), which revealed that Ecuador produced a total of 22,753 tons of turkey meat in 2022.

Diana Espín, CEO of Conave, explained that this strategy starts with the import of the mother turkey. “This turkey comes in an egg, it is incubated for 21 days or more and a turkey comes out that will lay fertilized eggs,” said the CEO who recalled that until before 2020, 100% of turkey production in Ecuador started from imports.

Currently, 60% of the turkeys consumed in Ecuador still correspond to imports of day-old turkeys that have already hatched and are flown in from the United States. “This bird goes directly to the farms to be fattened and become a turkey to be consumed,” added Espín.

However, the executive warned that import processes are not so simple due to the high mortality of day-old turkeys. “There can be temperature shocks, bad handling at airports, and this causes an increase in mortality. And, by the way, those day-old turkeys are expensive”, specified Espín.

Returning to fertilized eggs, Espín indicated that this is a more time-consuming process than importing hatched turkeys, since the egg must be imported and incubated for the turkey to hatch and grow to reach its productive age, some 30 weeks, and begin egg laying; then the fertilized egg is incubated and a fattening turkey is taken out.

This process also generates more movement in the industry, the Conave CEO added. “That turkey needs to be fed, more raw materials should be bought. This is useful because, logically, more raw materials are moved, more jobs are created and imports are avoided (…). And that’s positive because 40% of that production comes from here in Ecuador,” Espín stressed.

Panama and Peru could join the Bahamas as destinations for Ecuadorian chicken meat

Meanwhile, with innovation, the poultry sector continues to search for new destinations for its chicken meat which has been arriving in the Bahamas since June last year, where 100 tons are exported per month, the Ministry of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment and Fisheries revealed on Tuesday, August 8 , after a meeting with Conave executives, including its CEO Diana Espín.

According to the State Portfolio, the poultry industry is ready to close negotiations with other destinations in the Caribbean and Latin America.

In this regard, Francisco Jaramillo, coordinator of Conave, announced that “Asian countries are our horizon. However, in Latin America we are also targeting countries like Panama and Peru”.