2010 to 2019

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• 2010 Commercial Broilers 904 million, Commercial Layers 34 million of which free range = 7.3 million, Turkeys 16 million, Broiler Breeders 6.3 million
• 2010 Olaf Swarbrick, poultry veterinarian dies
• 2010 Pfizer acquires Synbiotics adding the proflock immunodiagnostic range to their poultry portfolio
• 2010 Natural light is required for Freedom Food chickens
• 2010 Environmental enrichment is required in housing for Red Tractor free-range chickens
• 2010 The Co-operative ends use of cage egg ingredients in own brand products
• 2010 Noble Foods purchases GU and Didier Patisserie
• 2010 2 Sisters acquire Dutch-based Chicken processor Sorteboom Group with facilities in the Netherlands and Poland
• 2010 Kemin purchase a controlling interest in an existing encapsulation company, The technology ensures the controlled release of feed additives to the animal
• 2010 Kemin consolidate their separate businesses into one company – Kemin Agrifoods
• 2010 First manure to energy plant is assembled & installed in the UK on Stephen Hay’s family farm
• 2010 One of the pioneers of modern multi-site poultry production, Edward (Ted) Burnham dies aged 86. Ted went to work for JP Wood and Sons in Shropshire in 1956, one of only 10 employees. When he retired in 1984 he was a director and the longest serving employee of a business, which employed 1500 people and owned 55 sites
• 2010 Bernard Matthews (right) founder of the country’s best-known turkey company, dies peacefully at his Great Witchingham home on 25 November. Mr Matthews started out with just 20 eggs and an incubator in 1950, but by the end of the decade had built it up to a 50,000-bird business, based on 320 acres of ex-Second World War airfields. In the 1960s he launched his first brand – Norfolk Manor Farms turkey – before branching into processed meats and ready meals in the 1970s. His advertising slogan “Bootiful” was launched in 1981 and has endured to the present day
• 2010 Duck Assurance Scheme (DAS) is launched by the British Poultry Council
• 2010 Assured Chicken Production established
• 2010 Poultry Person of the year: Mr. James Hook (right)
• 2011 Commercial Broilers 896 million, Commercial Layers 32 million of which free range = 9.7 million, Turkeys 17 million, Broiler Breeders 6.6 million
• 2011 H1N1 “Swine Influenza” virus detected in turkeys on a farm in Cheshire
• 2011 2 Sisters announces it is to buy Northern Foods PLC in a deal worth £342 million
• 2011 Pfizer acquires Alpharma as part of its purchase of King Pharmaceuticals entering the poultry in feed anticoccidials and probiotics sector
• 2011 A dioxin scare via contaminated laying hen feed disrupts the EU processed egg sector affecting certain UK manufacturers who source liquid egg from EU egg processors
• 2011 2 Sisters open a poultry plant in Thetford
• 2011 2 Sisters purchase Brookes Avana, combining RF Brookes chilled foods and Avana Bakeries
• 2011 Cargill Foods acquire Provimi
• 2011 CEVA acquires Centaur Vetech Canada to develop Coccidiosis vaccines
• 2011 Merck Animal Health is formed in the USA and called MSD Animal Health in other countries including the UK (right)
• 2011 The world record for the largest gathering of people dressed as turkey is 661 and is set in Dallas
• 2011 CCTV is required in slaughterhouses for all Freedom Food animals and all Co-operative primary own brand suppliers
• 2011 JF McKenna becomes a suppler for Collinson products in the UK
• 2011 The Co-operative database of animal welfare is extended to include “Elmwood” turkey
• 2011 Welfare outcomes assessment introduced for Freedom Food and Soil Association laying hen farms
• 2011 The Farm Animal Welfare Council changes its name to become the Farm Animal Welfare Committee
• 2011 Don Tyson, former chairman and chief executive of Tyson Foods, the world’s largest poultry processor, dies at the age of 80 after a brief illness. A statement from current Tyson president, Donnie Smith, said that Mr Tyson was famous for his “play hard, work hard” ethos and his “no bad days” outlook on life
• 2011 Second manure to energy plant in the UK assembled and installed at Uphouse Farm, Norfolk
• 2011 Ministers at the Agricultural Council discuss the state of play regarding the phasing out of conventional cages for rearing hens. The discussion was based on the Commission’s briefing on the multi-stakeholders’ meeting that took place in January. The Commission reminded the member states of the deadline of 1 January 2012 – laid down in 1999 – when conventional battery cages for laying hens will no longer be allowed in the EU. It also asked them to provide data on enforcement and declared its intention to monitor the situation until the ban comes into force. Member states agreed that in order to ensure a level playing field among producers and avoid fragmentation of the internal market, the deadline must be met. At the same time, it is important to safeguard EU producers’ competitiveness in relation to third countries
• 2011 Elanco make an “irrevocable and unconditional offer” to acquire Belgium-based Janssen Animal Health. No manufacturing facilities are included in the planned transaction, but upon closing the deal, Elanco will obtain a portfolio of about 50 marketed animal health products with Special emphasis on poultry
• 2011 Merck and Sanofi-Aventis announce the mutual termination of their agreement to form a new animal health joint venture by combining Merial, the animal health business of Sanofi-Aventis, with Intervet/Schering-Plough, Merck’s animal health unit. As a result, each party will keep its current, separate animal health assets and businesses
• 2011 Eggbase is formed by Anne Fleck
• 2011 Aviagen Turkeys confirm the acquisition of Lincolnshire-based Holly Berry Hatcheries, enhancing its position as a producer and seller of turkey poults for the UK’s traditional “farm fresh” market
• 2011 Aviagen Limited is the first company in the world to achieve compartment status for all its facilities in the UK (right)
• 2011 Poultry Person of the year: Mr Clive Frampton (right)
• 2012 Commercial Broilers 918 million, Commercial Layers 35 million of which free range = 9.8 million, Turkeys 18 million, Broiler Breeders 6.9 million
• 2012 Ross implement genomic selection in the commercial breeding program
• 2012 Natural light required for Freedom Food turkey
• 2012 Sainsbury’s ends use of cage shell egg ingredients in own brand products
• 2012 New vaccine licensed to protect poultry against Mycoplasma synoviae
• 2012 An EU ban on battery cages comes in to effect, egg producers are required to provide hens with larger and more comfortable cages, which include nesting and scratching areas that allow more natural behavior
• 2012 BOCM PAULS LTD are acquired by ForFarmers group creating the largest feed company in Europe
• 2012 Noble Foods launch the Happy Egg Co brand in the USA, thereby becoming the largest Free Range brand in the World!
• 2012 Elanco Animal Health acquire ChemGen
• 2012 Tributes are paid to Clive Frampton (right) the chairman of egg processor Frampton’s after his death was announced on 17 March. Mr Frampton had been suffering from motor neurone disease. He was highly revered within the egg industry and was described by Jonathan Farnhill, of BOCM as a “gentleman and true servant of the poultry industry.” He was well known within the industry, having served as President of the International Egg Commission. Most recently he was chairman of the British Egg products Association and the European Egg Processor Association and was also treasurer of the British Egg Industry Council
• 2012 Faccenda acquires the country’s second biggest turkey producer, Cranberry Foods, for an undisclosed sum, taking its combined turnover to about £400 million. The deal complements Faccenda’s recent announcement of its planned internal investment at its Telford and Brackley sites, including investment in new cutting and portioning lines, chilled warehousing and new administration facilities
• 2012 DSM Nutritional Products launch the High-performance phytase RONOZYME® HiPhos is now licensed and available within the EU
• 2012 Pfizer introduce Poulvac E.coli. the first modified live vaccine in the UK to protect poultry against E. coli. The vaccine was initially developed from genome technology at the UK Government’ s Veterinary laboratories at Weybridge
• 2012 Professor Sir Colin Spedding (right) a leading agricultural academic and friend of the poultry sector, dies, aged 87. The list of qualifications and accolades attached to his name is almost as long as the list of organisations and committees he served during an illustrious career. As well as the knighthood and professorship, he was a CBE, MSc, PhD, DSc, CBiol, Hon FIBiol, FRASE, FIHort, FRAgS, Hon Assoc RCVS and Hon DSc (Reading) – to mention just a few
• 2012 Dr Ken Laughlin (right), one of the world’s most respected animal welfare and poultry breeding experts, dies after a period of illness. Dr Laughlin was most recently group vice-president for policy and strategy at Aviagen before retiring in 2008 to act as an independent consultant to the business. He was awarded the 15th Temperton Fellowship in 2007 for his work on ‘The Evolution of Genetics, Breeding and Management’ and was a renowned speaker on a variety of topics, most notably animal welfare. Having studied zoology at Durham University, followed by a PhD on incubation in wild bird populations, Dr Laughlin worked at both the Poultry Research Centre and Marshalls in Edinburgh, both the US and UK arms of Cobb, and then at Rainbow in South Africa before joining Aviagen in 2003. Dr Laughlin had a highly distinguished career and his contribution to the poultry industry will be remembered throughout the world
• 2012 Martin Pitt (right), one of the founders of the modern free-range egg industry dies. Mr Pitt started his free-range business 40 years previously and marketed his eggs in and around London through 200 shops and restaurants, including Harrods. He also produced mayonnaise and cheese from the milk of his 400 ewes, for sale in three national supermarkets. He won a Nuffield scholarship in 1981 to study the production and marketing of non-cage eggs, a project that took him to seven European countries. He won many other awards for his work in the industry and was the founder with Jeff Vergerson of the Free Range Egg Association at that time called FREG (Free Range Egg)
• 2012 Industry “legends” Aled Griffiths OBE and Peter Kemp OBE (right) are presented with International Egg Commission Honorary Life Member Awards at its 2012 conference in London. Mr. Kemp was owner and managing director of Yorkshire Egg Producers from 1970, selling eggs under the Goldenlay Brand. In 1988, he sold the business, but stayed on to oversee the integration of Yorkshire Egg Producers into Deans, later becoming a consultant at Deans and Noble. He first attended the IEC conference in Paris in 1976, and served as its chairman from 1991-94. Mr. Griffiths of Oaklands Farm Eggs was a member of the organizing committee for the IEC conference when it was last held in London in 1986. He was past-chairman of the IEC production committee and has sat on the executive committee. He is one of only 12 delegates who attended both the 1986 and the 2012 annual conferences in London. Mr Griffiths also served as chairman of the NFU Poultry Committee and was the founding chairman of the British Egg Industry Council
• 2012 Pfizer introduces a semi-automated Embrex system IO-M offering in ovo technology to smaller hatcheries
• 2012 Poultry Person of the year: Mr. Peter Bradnock (right)
• 2012 Young Poultry Person of the year: Mr. Matthew Davies (right)
• 2013 Commercial Broilers 943 million, Commercial Layers 34 million of which free range = 9.5 million, Turkeys 17 million, Broiler Breeders 7.0 million
• 2013 LJ Fairburn and Son, Noble Foods’ largest contracted producer decides to go it alone, investing about £1m in a new packing centre and launching its own branded egg. The decision ends a 30-year plus association with the country’s largest packer, initially supplying Deans Farms before it became Noble Foods.
• 2013 Environmental enrichment is required for Red Tractor turkeys
• 2013 Zoetis (right) is created as a stand alone company following an Initial Public Offering on the New York Stock Exchange
• 2013 Cobb moves its European headquarters to Colchester. Jerry Moye, Cobb president, said on opening the facility “We’ve already made substantial investment in developing and expanding Cobb great- grandparent production facilities in the UK and we’re now doubling the scale of our pedigree breeding operation in the Netherlands.”
• 2013 Sunrise Eggs acquires Shropshire Free Range Eggs’ sales interests
• 2013 CEVA acquires E-cat-ID (producer of hatchery vaccination and egg injection equipment)
• 2013 Poultry processor 2 Sisters Food Group expands its portfolio with the purchase of Vion UK’s red meat and poultry businesses. The businesses have been up for sale since November 2012, when Dutch-owned Vion announced plans to exit the UK meat processing industry. The deal comprises 11 processing sites, which employ approximately 6,000 employees across Scotland, England and Wales. It is understood that 2 Sisters, incorporating the Vion business, controls about a 38% share of the UK broiler business
• 2013 Poultry Person of the year: Mr Jeff Vergerson (right)
• 2013 Young Poultry Person of the year: Mr Phil Hammond (right)
• 2014 Poultry World reveals the results in its search for “The Greatest”, as follows: Greatest “poultry person” past – Bernard Matthews
• Greatest “poultry person” present – Derek Kelly
• Greatest development for layers – The Lion scheme
• Greatest development for broilers – Live vaccines
• Greatest disaster – Edwina Currie’s comments on salmonella in eggs
• Greatest challenge – Feeding the world
• Greatest poultry brand – Kentucky Fried Chicken and Happy Eggs
• Greatest poultry song – The Birdy Song by The Tweets
• 2014 Commercial Broilers 936 million, Commercial Layers 35 million of which free range = 10.1 million, Turkeys 16 million, Broiler Breeders 8.3 million
• 2014 EU Regulation for use of manure as a fuel on farms is agreed
• 2014 Widespread coverage of Campylobacter begins when the Food Standards Agency made “don’t wash chicken” the theme of its Food Safety Week
• 2014 Cobb acquire Heritage Breeders
• 2014 Noble Foods purchase Manton’s (Liquid Egg) and closes the former Daylay egg processing site at Bilsthorpe
• 2014 Freedom Food are rebranded to RSPCA Assured to the Industry
• 2014 Cobb acquires Heritage Breeders from Perdue in the US
• 2014 Faccenda Group changes its name to Faccenda Foods Ltd
• 2014 Elanco Animal Health acquires Lohmann Animal Health
• 2014 Broiler farming business 2 Agriculture is looking to sell its feed milling operation – acquired as part of the Vion takeover by 2 Sisters Food Group last year – to leading feed company AB Agri. 2 Agriculture says it has entered into “exclusive negotiations” with AB Agri and that a due diligence process is under way. If successful, the deal will see the transfer of four feed mills, namely Fairview in Scotland, Llay in Wales, Stoke Ferry in Norfolk and Chettisham in Cambridgeshire
• 2014 Premier Nutrition acquires the business of Roses Nutrition, expanding its presence in the premix market for pigs and layers. Premier’s managing director Alistair Cross said the purchase was an important milestone in the company’s plans to grow its core UK base.
• 2014 Broiler growing company 2 Agriculture announces it is at an “advanced” stage in selling its farming and live bird haulage operation to Hook 2 Sisters. In a letter to about 120 growers, 2 Agriculture director Lionel Halls says the ongoing review of the organization has now been completed, culminating in the sale of the growing and catching/collection businesses
• 2014 The Food Standards Agency (FSA) publishes the first set of quarterly results from a new survey of Campylobacter on fresh shop-bought chickens. The results show 59 per cent of birds tested positive for the presence of Campylobacter. In four per cent of samples, Campylobacter was identified on the outside of the packaging
• 2014 Former British Poultry Council chairman John Williams (right) dies at the age of 80. A Londoner by birth, Mr. Williams started his career in the poultry sector with Buxted Chicken in Yorkshire, before joining Cherry Valley in 1966, becoming a director in 1974
• 2014 Noble Foods’ acquisition of egg processing business Mantons is given the all clear by the Competition and Markets Authority, following a 40-day review of the case. The merger was initially signed off between the two companies in March of this year, with plans set in motion to shift liquid egg production from Noble’s Bilsthorpe site to Manton’s Harrogate and Gainsborough processing sites
• 2014 Zoetis launches the first specific vaccine against the QX strain of infectious bronchitis
• 2014 A laying hen vaccine, being developed in the UK and shown to be effective in reducing populations of red mite, is to enter commercial trials in 2015. It is one of the first vaccines developed that will work against external parasites of any type. Red mites cost the EU poultry industry about €130m/year (£102m/year), according to Professor Julie Fitzpatrick, chief executive of the Moredun Research Institute, which has led the vaccine’s development
• 2014 Faccenda Foods enters into an agreement with Lincolnshire-based Cherry Valley Farms for the intended purchase of its duck processing business Cherry Valley Foods. The deal is expected to be signed off by the end of the year and will see the transfer of the slaughtering/processing/cooking facility at Caistor, the hatchery at Usselby and a number of owned and contracted farms in the area
• 2014 Details of an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in East Yorkshire emerge in November
• 2014 2 Sisters Food Group launches the largest and most comprehensive programme to tackle campylobacter ever undertaken by the UK poultry industry. The business has launched a £10-million initiative, with contributions from its retail partners, into reducing Campylobacter levels in poultry; far exceeding anything the sector had previously invested
• 2014 EPIC moves from Forest of Arden to Celtic Manor Resort. Newport
• 2014 PD Hook acquire the breeding and hatchery operations previously owned by Vion bringing the total capacity to 9.5 million chicks a week
• 2014 Moy Park achieves ‘Environmental Initiative of the Year’ in the Meat and Poultry Processing Awards, also in 2014 Moy Park achieved the ambitious goal of sending zero waste to landfill across its manufacturing and agricultural sites throughout the UK & Europe
• 2014 Poultry Person of the year: Mr. John Reed (right)
• 2014 Young Poultry Person of the year: Mrs. Rebecca Tonks (right)
• 2015 Commercial Broilers 999 million, Commercial Layers 35 million of which free range = 10.0 million, Turkeys 17 million, Broiler Breeders 8.6 million
• 2015 A low-pathogenic case of avian flu is confirmed in broiler breeder chickens at a farm in Hampshire. The birds are culled, the virus is of the H7 subtype
• 2015 BHSL introduce Combined Heat and Power (CHP) product
• 2015 Freedom Food launches RSPCA Assured to the public
• 2015 Zoetis acquires KL Products, a leader in hatchery automation equipment
• 2015 Zoetis acquires Pharmaq
• 2015 Ready Egg Products commissions the first egg processing plant to be built in the UK for almost 40 years
• 2015 Zoetis acquires the animal health assets of Abbot
• 2015 Faccenda Foods acquires Cherry Valley Foods
• 2015 Elanco Animal Health acquires Novartis Animal Health
• 2015 Noble Foods purchase Bowler Energy to form Noble Green Energy
• 2015 UK egg production 10,020 million eggs. Total UK consumption 12,216 million eggs. 189 eggs eaten in the UK per person, which equates to 33 million eggs consumed per day
• 2015 Four new outbreaks of H5N2 highly pathogenic avian influenza are reported in the US, including one affecting 5.3 million commercial chickens in Iowa, bringing the number of poultry affected since December 2014 to more than eight million
• 2015 Most chickens test positive for the presence of campylobacter, according to the results of a year-long study published by the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA). Campylobacter is a food bug mainly found on raw poultry and is the biggest cause of food poisoning in the UK. Cumulative results for samples taken between February 2014 and February 2015 have now been published as official statistics, including results presented by major retailer. The results for the full year show: 73 per cent of chickens tested positive for the presence of campylobacter; 19 per cent of chickens tested positive for campylobacter within the highest band of contamination; 7 per cent of packaging tested positive for the presence of campylobacter
• 2015 Britain’s second-largest poultry integrator, Moy Park, will be sold by its parent company to Brazilian agri-food business JBS, for just under £1bn
• 2015 Poultry consultant Richard Maxwell, (right) hits the headlines with a £53m Euro Millions win on 1 April, Richard says he plans to carry on chicken farming, despite becoming the 10th richest ever lottery winner. Mr. Maxwell explained that, as well as working as a consultant for turkey producer Bernard Matthews two days a week, in recent years he had been involved in his own turkey and broiler farming operations
• 2015 Britain’s second-largest poultry integrator, Moy Park, will be sold by its parent company to Brazilian agri-food business JBS, for just under £1bn
• 2015 An outbreak of avian influenza is confirmed in Lancashire, and identified as the H7N7 variant of the disease
• 2015 MSD Animal Health is bringing a new vector vaccine to market – the first of its kind – that can protect poultry against both infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT) and Marek’s disease
• 2015 KellyBronze turkeys opens a new processing plant at the family’s home farm in Essex, just four months after a devastating fire ripped through the unit. The plant at Great Baddow has received its official license from the Food Standards Agency, in time for the processing of 500 turkeys aimed at the Thanksgiving market later this month. Processing of birds for the Christmas market also begins this weekend (22nd November) (right)
• 2015 New vector vaccine is launched to protect poultry against both infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT) and Marek’s disease
• 2015 St Ewe Free Range Eggs launch (Boost the Roost) the only Selenium and DHA Omega 3 enriched egg on to the UK market
• 2015 Farming minister George Eustice (right) states that a proposed ban on beak trimming will not be introduced in the UK from January 2016
• 2015 British United Turkeys – Big 6 breeding turkey hen produced 92 egg and 92 poults in 24 weeks
• 2015 British United Turkeys – Premium breeding turkey hen produced 118 egg and 100 poults in 24 weeks 2015 British United Turkeys – Big 6 turkey stag weighs 21 Kg at 20 weeks
• 2015 British United Turkeys – Big 6 female weighs 10.9 Kg at 16 weeks
• 2015 Renowned veterinarian and poultry scientist, Frank Jordan, dies
• 2015 Poultry Person of the year: Mr. Ranjit Singh Boparan (right)
• 2015 Young Poultry Person of the year: Mr. Daniel Fairburn (right)
• 2016 Individual members of the British Free Range Egg Producers Association (BFREPA) will be insured for up to £50,000 of secondary cleansing and disinfection costs should they be affected by an avian influenza outbreak
• 2016 Peter Kemp, industry legend and long serving member of the EPIC organizing committee dies
• 2016 Laboratory tests confirm a very mild strain of the H5N1 virus at the site of the Scottish avian influenza outbreak, and a humane cull of almost 40,000 birds has now begun
• 2016 Food and farming business Cranswick announces the purchase of Crown Chicken, the east Anglia- based poultry integrator for £40m. Crown Chicken kills about 450,000-500,000 birds a week, and mills feed for its own production and for sale to third parties
• 2016 Salmovac 440 a new salmonella vaccine that claims earlier onset of immunity and longer, stronger suppression of the bug is launched to the UK market at the Pig & Poultry Fair by Hysolv Animal Health
• 2016 Cobb Europe grandparent production facilities in Essex become officially recognized as a compartment under OIE rules on trading in the event of a disease outbreak
• 2016 Zoetis acquires Micro Biodevices, a pioneering Scandinavian company developing and manufacturing microfluidic “lab on a chip” diagnostic analyzers and tests for veterinary point-of-care services
• 2016 First USA manure to energy plant assembled and assembled in Maryland
• 2016 JF McKenna becomes the supplier for Volito products in the UK
• 2016 The latest results from the Food Standards Agency’s Campylobacter survey on fresh chickens show a continued decrease in the number of contaminated birds. The results for January to March 2016 also showed a reduction in those with the highest level of contamination from the equivalent quarter last year. The latest data show 9.3 per cent of chickens tested positive for the highest level of contamination in this quarter, down from 21.8 per cent for the three months from December 2014 to February 2015. Campylobacter was present on 50 per cent of chicken samples, down from 71 per cent in the equivalent quarter of the previous year. FSA tested 1,009 samples of fresh whole chilled UK-produced chickens and packaging this quarter
• 2016 12.5 billion eggs are expected to be eaten in the UK in 2016 which is around 34m every day.
• 2016 Hy-Line UK’s Millennium hatchery increases capacity to 27.6 million female chicks and 2.5 million PS breeders making it the largest layer hatchery in Europe
• 2016  Novus celebrate 25 years (right)
• 2016 Poultry industry leaders warn that the sector faces increased volatility after the UK narrowly voted to leave the European Union. The EU Referendum result led to huge sterling currency losses, which saw the pound hit a 30-year low and the FTSE 100 fall by nearly 9% in the immediate aftermath of the decision
• 2016 First CHP (combined heat & power) manure system commissioned in UK by BHSL
• 2016 BEIC reports a record egg consumption of 189 eggs per capita (an increase of 6 eggs per person)
• 2016 BEIC reports that the Lion scheme has effectively eradicated Salmonella Enteriditis in British eggs since its introduction in 1998. Nearly 90% of UK eggs are now produced within the Lion scheme. The British Lion is the UK’s leading food safety mark with consumer recognition of more than 80% – double that of other comparable food quality marks
• 2016 Moy Park becomes part of the worlds largest processing company, JBS, and processes 5 million fresh chickens per week and 1.3 million turkeys per year, employing 12,000 people across the UK, Ireland, Holland and France.
• 2016 Ross Poultry celebrate 60 years (right)
• 2016 Cobb celebrate 100 years (right)
• 2016 EPIC celebrates its 50th anniversary conference (right)
• 2016 EPIC inaugural award for Lifetime Achievement: Mr Derek Kelly
• 2016 UK-based Kelly Turkeys given official go-ahead by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to market its products throughout the US.
• 2016 Turkey Club UK names Derek Kelly as its new patron 
• 2016 Poultry Person of the year: Sir. John Campbell
• 2016 Young Poultry Person of the year: Dr. Steven Pace
• 2016 (Dec) Defra imposes a 12 week housing order on poultry kept across England, with devolved authorities in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland following suit in an attempt to minimise contact between wild birds and farmed animals reducing the risk of infection from the H5N8 strain of avian influenza that is endemic across the European continent infecting farms.
• 2017 Egg producer John Campbell honoured with a knighthood, for services to farming and entrepreneurship.
• 2017 (Jan) Camplylobacter infections among consumers have fallen dramatically, latest figures from Public Health England (PHE) show. The number of people getting sick in 2015 after eating poultry fell to the lowest levels since 2008, data published in January 2017 shows. There were 55,697 cases reported in 2015, nearly 7,000 fewer than the year before. The results follow concerted efforts by farmers and processors to reduce levels of the food poisoning bug.
• 2017 (Aug) Aviagen announce purchase of Hubbard Breeders, the broiler breeding division of Group Grimaud.
• 2017 Tesco extends its pledge to end the sale of eggs from caged hens to all of its central European stores from 2025.
• 2017 (Sept) MSD Animal Health launch Exzolt the first red mite treatment added to water lines that it says can “virtually eliminate” the pest from a poultry farm.
• 2017 Fast food chain McDonalds has announced it will ramp up its procurement of British chicken and that poultrymeat is now more popular than beef in its restaurants. Connor McVeigh, supply chain director at the chain, told delegates at 2017 EPIC, by 2020, the volume of poultrymeat from British farms would be “10-11 times higher than it was in 2013”.
• 2017 Poultry Person of the year: Mr. Jim Hunnable
• 2017 Young Poultry Person of the year: Dr. Jessica Martin
• 2017 (Nov) The government raises the official risk of Avian influenza from low to medium, mainly in light of H5N8 outbreaks across Europe. Italy has reported 17 recent outbreaks of the virus, with one farm housing 850,000 layers – one of the country’s largest.
• 2018 (Jan) A breakthrough by scientists at the Pirbright Institute in Surrey may reduce the number of vaccines that need to be administered to birds, potentially reducing costs and improving animal welfare. The new method involves genetically modifying Marek’s disease vaccine making it able to protect against Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD) avian influenza or Newcastle Disease.
• 2018 (Jan) Moy Park completes a £20 million investment in a state-of-the-art hatchery at Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, creating 55 new jobs
• 2018 (Feb) First human case of Avian Influenza H7N4 confirmed in China
• 2018 Lincolnshire-based LJ Fairburn becomes the largest independent egg producer and packer in the country.
• 2018 Noble Foods the UK’s largest egg producer announces it will stop sourcing eggs from caged hens by 2025, a move that puts it in line with the existing commitments of most of the UK’s major retailers.
• 2018 (Jul) Gressingham Smithfield Limited, a new company within the Gressingham group best known for Gressingham Duck, has acquired the business of butchery firm JF Edwards. Under the terms of the acquisition Gressingham has acquired the ongoing business of four shops on London’s Smithfield market and a butchers shop in Primrose Hill.
• 2018 Fibronil contamination of eggs generates recalls and alerts from 16 European countries causing costs to sharply increase by around 100% for shell eggs. 1,000’s of tonnes of product are destroyed and millions of laying birds culled
• 2018 Poultry Person of the year: Mr. Geoff Buchanan
• 2018 Young Poultry Person of the year: Mr. Jim Wilson
• 2019 A new commercial poultry farm developed, the first in the UK to be accessible to the public. The Northern Poultry Campus, which is set to open in 2020. The North Yorkshire facility will include a café and a gift shop for visitors and aims to increase transparency around egg production by showing consumers exactly where their eggs come from, and how birds are treated.
  2019 Broiler farmers in the UK reduced their antibiotic use by 82% between 2012 and 2017, and the sector now produces half the meat eaten in the UK using less than 9.7% of the total antibiotics licensed for food-producing animals.
• 2019 Poultry Person of the year: Mr. Martin Shea
• 2019 Young Poultry Person of the year: Miss. Aimee Mahony