Irish firm plans to increase chicken offal exports

Ireland’s Carton Brothers has announced a €3m investment in equipment that will remove more offal from its chickens for export to foreign markets.

The investment will see up to 50 extra people employed at the plant in Shercock, Co Cavan, joining the current 650 company employees and 150 contracted farmers.

The specialised equipment will enable the company to further process offal and remove hearts, livers and gizzards from chickens. Carton Brothers already supplies the Asian market with chicken feet.

A spokesman for the company said the offal would be exported mainly to China, where offal is a popular food: “Prior to this development much of this material would have been going to waste each month, because the demand for chicken offal in the Irish market is low.”

Alo Mohan of the Irish Farmers Association Poultry Committee said it was positive news at a time when Cappoquin Poultry was under examinership and Co-operative Poultry Products in Cootehill had closed. However, some of the latter’s grower/suppliers are now supplying Western Brand.

The new staff will be in place early in 2013 at Carton Brothers, which has capacity to process 160,000 birds a day.