Rainbow Chicken, South Africa’s second largest poultry producer, has turned from loss to a significant profit in the year to end June 2024.
Details are reported in the results for that period of its former parent company, RCL Foods. Rainbow was part of RCL until the end of June, and was unbundled and listed separately from July this year. The next set of results will come from Rainbow itself.
“The turnaround at Rainbow is now well advanced, with every component of the process yielding positive results,” RCL stated. “At the core of the transformation is the aim to farm as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible, with support from a change in breed.”
Rainbow’s revenue for the year was up 7.9% to just over R14.5 billion. After a loss of nearly R300 million in 2023, it reported a profit of R169.6 million in 2024, an increase of 156.6%. Similarly, headline earnings attributable to equity holders rose 164% to R185.5 million after a loss the previous year.
RCL said Rainbow’s new Indian River chicken breed, a less energy-dense feed and a focus on husbandry basics “are driving delivery on all agricultural key performance indicators”.
The doubling of the capacity at the Hammarsdale processing plant was implemented successfully, which resulted in increased volumes, lower processing costs and the creation of 489 direct and indirect job opportunities.
The cost to Rainbow of last year’s bird flu outbreaks was R202 million. This related mainly to the import of hatching eggs, feed costs for extended flocks, the safe disposal of culled birds, extra cleaning and the cost of moving its Midrand breeder facilities to a less densely populated region.
However, it is clear that Rainbow’s hopes of a workable vaccination programme against bird flu have not yet been realised.
“While a vaccination programme has been approved by Government in principle to better protect the national flock, practical implementation of the programme is currently prohibitive due to complexity and cost,” RCL said.
