Poultry industry in Kuwait

Abstract

The poultry industry in Kuwait is one of the leading food industries in the country. It consists of several poultry companies that vary between large, medium and small size poultry producers. The majority of poultry production concentrates on chicken meat and eggs, due to consumers' demand. An estimated 60% of the local broiler production is marketed live, 5% chilled and the rest as frozen. The poultry industry in Kuwait is moving towards production of specialty food such as eggs enriched with omega-3-fatty acids which, it seems, will take part of the market share in the future. Per capita consumption of poultry meat in Kuwait reached 63.3, 61.2, and 60.8 Kg in the years 2004, 2005, and 2006 respectively. Average per capita consumption of poultry meat before the invasion by Iraq was 22 Kg and after liberation per capita consumption increased. Before the invasion, chicken meat was considered as the second most popular meat consumed after lamb and mutton. However, after liberation, red meat consumption was reduced in the years 1996 to 2002. This could be due to concern about the so-called ‘Mad Cow’ disease that shifted consumer preferences from red meat to poultry. In addition, increased consumers' health awareness and presence of the coalition troops in Kuwait and near Iraq increased the demand for poultry meat. Since local producers supplied only 47% of the poultry meat and 55% of table eggs consumed and the remainder of the local poultry consumption imported from other countries, more development and improvement in production is needed in the industry in order to gain confidence of their consumers and increase their share in the market.

Keywords::

• poultry
• broilers
• Kuwait
• poultry production
• chicken
• per capita consumption of chicken meat
• per capita consumption of eggs