Customs data put China’s chicken exports last year at $2.6 billion, almost double the 2020 level, Reuters reported. It was also the year the country began selling more chicken than it bought. For a market long used to Chinese demand pulling product in, the flow has turned.
Few companies show the shift as clearly as Wintop Food, a processor in Tengzhou, in Shandong province. It handles 60 million chickens a year, and its breasts, nuggets, meatballs and dumplings reach buyers in more than 20 countries. Overseas sales supplied half the profit last year, and that money is financing 33 acres of new capacity. When Reuters visited, general manager Dang Yangyang was worn out from days of escorting clients from Ghana and Senegal as well as Iraq, Jordan and Russia around the plant.
Dang, 44, put the sales pitch in blunt terms during an August tour. “International clients used to distrust the quality,” he said. “But when the meat is $1,000 cheaper per ton than Brazilian and Thai competitors, they have to either buy from China or lose out.”
Why there is so much chicken
The supply glut has a domestic cause. Chinese city dwellers have turned away from fatty pork, and per-capita pork consumption has fallen 13% since its 2023 peak, official data and state media show. Chicken intake per person rose by more than 50% in the decade through 2024. Production nonetheless kept climbing. Subsidies aimed at large corporate producers, meant to secure the food supply, accounted for about 13% of farm receipts between 2022 and 2024, the OECD found. Poultry output rose 7% last year.
The surplus now has to go somewhere. Over a decade Wintop has packed 120,000 birds into each shed, up from 20,000. Its birds average 2.5 kg, against 2.2 kg for Brazilian broilers, according to S&P Global, and reach slaughter weight in under 42 days rather than 45. The US standard is 35 days. The company also told Reuters that the Tengzhou government subsidises the wage bill for its more than 2,000 workers, without giving details.
A rival, Sunner, takes a different route, concentrating on marinated chicken and ready meals. Foreign revenue at Sunner climbed 42% last year, reaching $135 million.
Pressure on rivals
Gira, a food consultancy, calculates that since 2022 China’s slice of EU processed poultry has doubled to 10%, while in Britain it has tripled to more than 14%. Kukrit Arepagorn, who manages a Thai poultry exporters’ body, called the trend “very worrying”, because customers now use cheap Chinese prices as a bargaining reference. Ezequiel Pires, chairman of the Lisbon trading house Branexx, started sourcing from China in March, when customers in Africa went looking for something cheaper than Brazilian imports. By his count, breast meat and leg quarters from China sell for 10% to 20% less.
Michael Boddington, a Beijing-based agribusiness consultant, described the effect on global meat trade as “disruptive”. Asian importers used to be supplied from Europe and the Americas. A cheaper source now sits closer to home.
Regulators are watching. In July the European Commission opened an anti-dumping probe into Pekin duck, following complaints from local producers about Chinese subsidies. Last month it imposed duties on Chinese pea protein, at rates from 41% to 67%. Chicken has avoided similar action so far, though a Commission spokesperson told Reuters that European authorities are monitoring the market. The bloc plans to tighten EU-origin labelling on poultry products from 2027.
Food safety remains the weak point. Gordon Butland, of G&S Agriconsultants in Bangkok, said Chinese exporters still need to build “lasting confidence in the safety, traceability and consistency of their products”. Gira’s Rupert Claxton added that certain customers stay loyal to Thailand because the taste never varies.
Dang is not waiting for that argument to settle. “We’re exporting to whatever countries we can,” he said. In agriculture and food China still buys more than it sells, though the shortfall is narrowing and stood at just over $100 billion in the latest year. Dairy shipments are heading for $600 million this year.
Sources
- This Chinese export boom really has legs – and wings (Reuters, via Deccan Chronicle)
- Wintop and Chinese poultry (Reuters, via Deccan Chronicle, part 2)
- China's protein power play (Reuters, via The Star Malaysia)
- Explosive growth of Chinese poultry exports worries foreign producers (EuroMeatNews)
