Daily Archives: May 21, 2026

Avianza forges closer ties with China at a working lunch with the Embassy in Madrid The poultry meat interprofessional organisation met with Economic and Commercial...

BroilerNet, the first European network project aimed at improving the sustainability and resilience of the broiler sector, has completed its third and final working...

EW Group, the German giant and parent company of Aviagen, Lohmann, Hy-Line and EW Nutrition, has just entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire Olmix, the Breton company and world reference in seaweed-based additives and natural solutions for animal nutrition. Yet another vertical integration move within the Wesjohann empire, connecting genetics, nutrition and animal health under a single umbrella. How far will consolidation in the poultry industry go?

€5.5 billion in revenue, more than 28,000 employees and over 300 active subsidiaries. If you work in poultry, there is a strong chance that somewhere in your production chain there is an EW Group product: broiler parent stock (Aviagen), laying hens (Lohmann and Hy-Line), vaccines (Vaxxinova), nutrition (EW Nutrition)... Yet most of the industry barely knows the name of the family that controls it. We profile the German holding company that pulls the strings of global poultry production.

Ask any technical director, production manager or purchasing officer in the poultry industry: where did you first see in ovo sexing, cage-free aviaries, automated hatcher discharge, or computer vision in slaughterhouses? Almost all of them give the same answer: at VIV Europe. We have reconstructed the 20 innovations that changed global poultry farming and made their debut in Utrecht. Essential reading before boarding your flight to the Netherlands.

The European broadcaster ARTE has just premiered 'Super Hens', a documentary that challenges one of the most persistent prejudices about poultry: that chickens are dim-witted animals. Cognition, memory, communication (with vocalisations that AI now allows us to interpret), emotions... What science is discovering about chickens' capabilities is forcing a rethink of precision poultry farming and animal welfare.

Whole chicken at €7.50, half at €4. Master Poulet, Pouletos, PB-Poulet Braisé... Low-cost halal chicken chains are multiplying across France and undercutting prices. But behind the success lurks an uncomfortable question that the French press has already begun to ask: where does that chicken actually come from? An analysis of the traceability gaps being opened up by this new consumption model.

Some trade fairs exist to sell; others exist to think. VIV Europe belongs to the second category — and has also achieved the first, in abundance. But its origins, nearly a century ago, in a modest pavilion in Utrecht, tell the story of an industry that learned to see itself with global ambition from a corner of the Netherlands. We reconstruct the story nobody has told you, and one that explains why all the decision-makers in poultry will be making their pilgrimage to Utrecht this June.

Vaccinate more, vaccinate better, vaccinate differently… or accept that no vaccination programme alone will stop genotype VII.1.1. Our contributor F.J. González sets out in this opinion piece the technical dilemma that the sector is beginning to discuss in private but not yet openly: are we asking of the vaccine what only biosecurity can deliver? Essential reading for veterinarians and technical managers.

MAPA confirmed on 28 April a new Newcastle Disease outbreak in Ràfol de Salem (Valencia), this time in broilers that had received three vaccine doses. \n\nThree doses. Eight outbreaks already in the Vall d'Albaida. \n\nThe question that nobody wants to voice aloud is becoming unavoidable: if genotype VII.1.1 is penetrating farms that have done everything asked of them, what still needs to be reviewed in management, biosecurity, or the vaccination strategy itself?