Best Dressed Chicken opens new hatchery

The almost $200-million expansion of Best Dressed Chicken's Cumberland hatchery in Portmore, St Catherine, is being hailed by Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Pearnel Charles Jr, as a major boost for the agriculture sector.

The expansion increases the hatchery's capacity by 70 per cent, allowing the company to better meet the demands of the local market and, particularly, small poultry farmers, by ensuring a steady supply of baby chicks. The facility, which provides for the hatching of eggs in a safe, controlled environment, now features improved temperature control, ventilation and air flow management in keeping with the requirements of a modern hatchery operation, while helping to preserve biosecurity.

"This expansion is part of the response to the call for us to continue to innovate and to introduce the kind of technology that will push Jamaica forward," Charles said at an opening ceremony on Wednesday.

Christopher Levy, group president and CEO of the Jamaica Broilers Group, said that the upgrade is an investment in the small farmers of the country, who represent 30 per cent of the production of poultry meat in Jamaica.

"It's done by roughly 200,000 small farmers across the island, mostly women, mostly for a second income," Levy said.

The Cumberland hatchery, along with the company's White Marl facility, feeds into Jamaica Broilers' Hi-Pro brand that serves these small farmers by providing them with day-old chicks.