We reported last week on much-improved results from Astral Foods, South Africa’s largest poultry producer.
However, Paul Matthew, head of the meat importers association AMIE, suggested that Astral’s higher profits had been made by exploiting consumers through higher prices.
Not so, said Izaak Breitenbach of the SA Poultry Association. Astral had increased its profits by expanding its business and selling more chickens while containing costs. It had invested in the industry and created jobs.
What, he wondered, had importers done, and what were their profit margins?
This rebuttal by SAPA’s Izaak Breitenbach was applauded by former AMIE CEO, David Wolpert, who preferred the industry’s view of Astral’s financials to those of his successor at AMIE.
