Chris Schutte, former CEO of Astral Foods, has been given this year’s Lifetime Achiever award by South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper.
The award was part of the newspaper’s annual Top 100 Companies celebrations.
It recognised the business achievements of Schutte, who retired in January after 16 years at the helm of South Africa’s largest poultry producer. In that time, he doubled Astral’s chicken production and expanded the company’s turnover from R6 billion to R24 billion, the newspaper reported.
“We managed to keep the price of chicken way below inflation…That is always a highlight when you can supply South Africans of all spheres of life with the cheapest chicken,” Schutte said.
Schutte dedicated his Lifetime Achiever award to the poultry industry.
“The rest of South Africa must recognise the critical importance of food security,” he told the newspaper.
“It is critically important. And the old saying is: if the masses are hungry, the rich won’t sleep.”
FairPlay founder Francois Baird said the government should recruit Schutte as an adviser on the production of affordable food.
“Chris Schutte has not only led his company with great distinction, but through his leadership at the SA Poultry Association, successfully fought for the survival of the poultry industry.
“Having started at the bottom rung of the industry – his stories of mucking out chicken houses are legendary – he rose to the top of South Africa’s largest poultry producer over a lifetime of dedication.
“Nobody knows more about poultry than Chris. We hope the government takes advantage of his knowledge and experience to advise them on how to create an enabling environment to encourage the production of the lowest cost chicken for South Africa’s poor and hungry.
“A true patriot, Chris has always acted in the interest of South Africa and for all South Africans. He was one of the early supporters of the FairPlay movement and we salute him!” Baird said.
