Australia’s Inghams Group is investing around A$50m (US$35.2m) in poultry farms in partnership with local peer ProTen.
Publicly listed Inghams said the project marks a “significant expansion in its Victorian poultry breeding operations”.
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In conjunction with ProTen, described as “Australia’s largest corporate meat chicken grower”, Inghams is investing in two breeder farms in Charlton, Victoria.
“The collaboration capitalises on ProTen’s proven expertise in poultry farm development and operations, ensuring the delivery of world-class production facilities,” the company said in a statement.
Inghams said the investment includes the construction of 16 “highly automated production sheds” across the two farms. Work is starting this month and operations are expected to begin in the first half of 2029.
“Once completed, the breeder farms will incorporate the latest technology in egg grading and sorting, utilising artificial intelligence-based systems to assess each egg produced,” Inghams, which will run the facilities, said.
“The scale of the investment and advanced automation will enhance Inghams’ operational efficiency and contribute to reduced transport costs.”
Sheridan Alfirevich, Inghams’ general manager for farming and milling, said: “Building on our long-standing presence in the region, these new state-of-the-art breeder farms will meaningfully expand our national breeding capacity and deliver world-class animal welfare and biosecurity outcomes.
“We are excited about the project and look forward to continuing to grow alongside the Charlton community for many years to come.”
ProTen owns more than 800 poultry sheds across farms in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland, according to the statement.
Its farms are able to produce more than 200m broilers a year, contributing around 25% of Australia’s broiler chicken production.
ProTen CEO James Wentworth said: “We are pleased to partner with Inghams in creating this state-of-the-art facility that will help feed Victoria into the future.”
Last month, Inghams announced the unusual step of investing in protein ingredients by taking a 10% stake in Australian firm Just Meat Protein (JMP) through a seed financing round.
The poultry processor invested A$1.05m of its own cash.
JMP holds an exclusive worldwide licence to hydrolysis technology, which turns meat into “allergen-free” powdered protein ingredients. The tech was developed at Australian’s science agency CSIRO.
