Load shedding sees SA Poultry Association dump 10 million eggs
The stage 6 load shedding of the past two weeks has seen the
South African Poultry Association dumping at least 10 million chicken
eggs.
This was confirmed by the association’s general manager Izaak Breitenbach.
He says that the industry has been losing at least a quarter of a day's production as a result of the ongoing power cuts.
"So in a five-day week, we will lose that every day. So we do not have the opportunity to slaughter all the birds over the weekend. The only remedy we have is not to place dale chicks and cut back production. And as I said the only remedy is that we don't place dale chicks and place the eggs out of the hatchery and we reduce the number of birds placed by 10 million."
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Struggling power utility Eskom has plunged the country's economy into a crisis as more and more businesses cannot make ends meet.
Breitenbach says that the current load shedding crisis costs the industry 75c/kg of chicken produced.
He adds that this is not the only loss that the industry suffers from.
"In most cases, we have generators and run these generators and some capacity can run the whole plant while in some cases the plants are too big and can only run half the plant."
