Chicken meat production in Australia is vertically integrated with a supply chain that includes approximately 800 farms, plus hatcheries, feed mills, breeding farms, processing plants and distribution manufacturers nationwide. An important aspect of an efficient business model within any vertically integrated industry is communication, particularly for the outputs of RD&E. One of the main motivations for this project was to explore the impact of a well-known barrier to information – internet connectivity.
To address this issue, a rudimentary ‘Chicken meat industry internet connectivity survey’ was developed and distribution attempted to all growers and processors within New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania to better understand barriers to communication within the Australian chicken meat industry.