News from DanHatch

In 2022, DanHatch Group again reached record-high sales of day-old chicks, and the poultry business’ profit followed suit while piglet production was phased out.

Strong performance in DanHatch Group’s hatchery activities led to record sales of 490 million day-old chicks and solid profit of EUR 8.2 million in the Group’s poultry companies in 2022. The Group’s hatcheries in Poland and France particularly contributed to the increased sales, totalling 18 million day-old chicks higher than the previous year.

2022 was not without its challenges. The increased spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry caused significant fluctuations in the demand and pricing of the Group’s products. At the same time, the war in Ukraine and the resulting uncertainty about the security of supply of energy and feed led to highly fluctuating prices for both energy and raw materials for feed production throughout most of the year. 

Due to persistently poor terms of trade, it was decided in early 2022 to stop the production of piglets at the remaining production facilities in the DanHatch Group’s subsidiary DanPiglet. The pig company has been in liquidation since 2014 with ongoing divestment of facilities.

A combination of the challenging market conditions and the costs associated with the liquidation of DanPiglet meant that the pig company ended its last financial year with a loss of EUR 7.3 million. However, due to the success of the poultry companies, DanHatch Group succeeded in realising an overall profit of almost EUR 0.9 million after tax.

At the same time, turnover increased to EUR 164 million compared to EUR 151 million in 2021.

Henning Haahr, Chairman of the Board of Directors of DanHatch and CEO of Danish Agro, which, together with DLG, owns DanHatch Group, is pleased that DanHatch Group can now concentrate on the poultry business now that pig production has been phased out:

“For a long time, it has been our ambition to divest the pig farms and focus on poultry production, which is DanHatch’s core competency. DanHatch Group is Europe’s largest independent supplier of day-old broilers and thus an important player in the European broiler sector. In 2023, the Group expects to reach sales of 500 million day-old chicks,” says Henning Haahr.

At the beginning of 2023, DanHatch Group’s total hatching capacity totalled 575 million day-old chicks, which means another sales record is possible this year.