Friday, June 24, 2016

New hatchery coming in Woodstock

Sargent Farms and Boire & Freres of Quebec will be building a new hatchery in Woodstock.

We are pleased to see this kind of investment in hatchery capacity and infrastructure in the Ontario chicken industry value chain,” said Henry Zantingh, chairman of Chicken Farmers of Ontario.

Our chicken farmers have a strong relationship with their local hatcheries and depend heavily on the quality and service we receive from our chick suppliers in order to ensure that our production meets the evolving needs of our customers and our consumers.”

Chicken board president and chief executive officer Rob Dougans said Ontario’s chicken industry has been experiencing significant growth over recent years, and CFO has been working to ensure that all stakeholders including chicken farmers, chicken processors and hatcheries understand the importance of meeting local consumer markets by continuously improving our business standards, assets and production practices.

The introduction of a new modern hatchery to the Ontario system will further enable the quality, service, flexibility, and sustainability of the Ontario chick supply.”

The new hatchery, called Thames River Hatchery, is expected to be open by the third quarter of 2017.

It costs about $10 million and will have an initial capacity of 20 million chicks per year.


CFO farmer-members are expected to grow almost 220 million chickens this year.