Sri lanka’s First-ever chicken with green certification

Agriculture is a natural process and broadly it is the science and art of cultivating plants and livestock. There are different components of agriculture:

• Crop farming – Growing of crops, mostly annuals
• Animal husbandry– Dairy and meat production
• Horticulture – Growing fruit crops including fruit trees
• Floriculture – Growing of flowers
  Vertical farming – Growing crops in green houses under controlled environment

Accordingly, animal husbandry is a component of agriculture and we are engaging in meat production under the component of animal husbandry. Animal husbandry could be identified as a natural mechanism of converting naturally indigestible materials for humans which are dense in plant materials, in to digestible nutrients via animals by means of meat, milk and eggs.

The process of meat production is a natural process in which meat is produced by feeding live animals with natural ingredients same as growing a plant in a suitable soil by providing necessary water and fertilizers with the intention of harvesting crops. In crop production, crops are harvested at the end of the cycle and in animal husbandry meat is harvested at the end. As we all know, technology is used in crop production such as use of hybrid seeds of selected variety of a single crop, technologically advanced equipment and lots of energy subsidies in the form of irrigation water, fertilizers and pesticides. Same story applies in animal husbandry furthermore in broiler meat production as well for instance we use modern technologies for hatching eggs to produce day old chicks (DOC) and those DOC are reared in environmentally controlled houses for efficient conversion of nutrients in feeds to the meat. In addition, technology and science is used in feed ration formulation and feed manufacturing but the raw materials used for the process are natural and complied with global standards.

We are a company working simultaneously on these three bottom lines:

• Profit: The traditional measure of corporate profit – the profit and loss (P&L) account.
• People: Measures how socially responsible an organization has been throughout its operations.
• The Planet: Measures how environmentally responsible a firm has been

Under the 3rd bottom line, we assure our stakeholders to maintain environmentally friendly operation in our total farming and production process in order to preserve the earth. Being awarded with greenhouse gas verification statement in accordance with ISO 14064-3-2006, from Control Union Certifications of The Netherlands is a milestone of our company in our commitment towards planet conscious operation.

We are maintaining a high quality waste water treatment system and waste materials recycling and utilization through rendering plant for this purpose which are hazzle free for both environment and the surrounding community as well. Most importantly, we initiated moving to Compostable Packaging for our chicken instead of using plastic or polyethene material contributing in relieving global burden of accumulating non compostable polythene materials on the planet.

In here, our food preservation method is reduction of temperature. The principle behind is that our product temperature is reduced to the danger zone of microbes (approximately to -10 C which is less than 4 C) in which they cannot grow or exhibit their food deteriorative activities. Then the product is preserved and the shelf life will be extended. The most important thing in this preservation method over other preservation methods are the organoleptic properties (taste, sight, smell, and texture) and the nutrients of the product are well preserved thus the freshness of the product is guaranteed. In addition, no any synthetic preservative or chemical is added in preservation, only the natural meat is reached to the customer as the end product.

We are handling a live thing (Bird) all the times in our farms thus Biosecurity, which literally means safety of living things, is a programme designed to prevent the exposure of birds to disease causing organisms by reducing introduction and spread of pathogens into and between the farms. Intensified biosecurity itself reduces diseases and avoids the neediness of using synthetic antibiotics for medications thus the process will be more natural. For that following precautionary measures are taken in the sense of biosecurity in our farms.

• Farms are located in an isolated area, at least three km away from nearest poultry in the case of breeder farm and 1.6 km in the case of commercial layer and broiler farm.
• Fencing of farm perimeter to prevent unwanted visitors.
• Testing of water source for minerals, bacteria, chemical contamination and pathogen load
• Safe housing, with suitable wild birds and rodent proofing
• Facilities for safe scientific disposal of dead birds
• Proper decontamination and disinfection of equipment, houses etc., following depletion of flock.

All the animal welfare measures are applied at all the pre – slaughtering process. It is intended to keep the bird calm by those measures because, once the bird is excited various hormones are secreted automatically within the bird in order to prepare the bird for an emergency situation. The mechanism is same as humans when we are excited our body secretes hormone called Corticosteroids in order to survive or cope unintended situations. When an excited bird is slaughtered, there is very high tendency to remain secreted hormones in the meat as a result of excitement thus adversely affects meat quality. Therefore, we follow National Chicken Council (NCC) animal welfare standards of USA in order to keep the bird always calm before slaughtering which consisted with following procedures.

• Calculating of catching time, transportation time and resting time of each and every batch
• Employee training on humane handling of birds when catching, transportation, handling and hanging.
• Slaughtering of birds while they are in complete unconscious situation after stunning.

Usage of hormones is not practiced in Sri Lanka at all. But still majority of people have this misconception in their mind and it could be identified as one of main pain factor for a person consuming chicken. A hormone must be administered directly in to bloodstream in order to be active a hormone in the body and hormones cannot be given to any animal through feed. Most of the people mis concept the vaccination done for Day old Chicks as a hormone injection. It is a normal vaccination scheme conducted in order to improve the immunity against viral infections in the bird, similar to the vaccinations done for infants such as rubella, HPV and hepatitis. The actual reasons of fast growth of broiler chicken are selective breeding which is completely a natural process and the high quality of feed and care.

Healthiness of our product is almost related the microbiological quality of the final products. The probability of having adverse health effects by consuming meat is food borne illness, basically bacteria food poisonings mainly due to salmonella. Our products are daily tested for these types of bacteria according to a schedule and all the food contact surfaces such as tables, cutting boards and knives are regularly tested for microbiological quality as well.

According to Sri Lanka Demographic and Health Survey (2006/7), 21.6 % of children under 5 years in Sri Lanka were underweight and it is slightly reduced to 20.5 % in 2016 over last 10 years. The main reason behind is protein energy malnutrition and approximately 20% children of children under 5 years in Sri Lanka is not having enough protein and energy from their diets. Chicken meat is the best affordable and nutrient dense food solution for this as it contains most of essential amino acids which are vital for the growth of children and those must be ingested through diet as they cannot be produced by human body.

We are a customer-oriented company rather than product-oriented company. We are not trying to sell our product in market but we are sensitive to our customer requirement and their pinpoints. By understanding those we develop our products for the market.