Built for one system.
A farmer invests in specialised buildings. Another buyer may not accept the same facilities, making it harder to switch.
Chicken meat in Europe:
Almost 50% of the market is controlled by 15 companies.
The analysis combines Eurostat’s 2024 poultry-processing data with publicly available company turnover, adjusted to include EU poultry operations and exclude unrelated or non-EU business where possible.
15 profiled companies · 47.6%
The chicken represents the 15 profiled companies. Market shares: 2024 estimates.
Section sizes represent relative company scale. Dots mark companies with available farm/farmer–company figures and are not counted one-for-one. Market calculations cover poultry overall; chicken accounts for approximately 87% of that market.
For some contract farmers, a company connection can become a dependency: a contract may end before specialised buildings are paid for, while few nearby buyers make switching difficult.
Years of debt. Shorter contracts.
The research describes debt lasting 10–15 years, while contracts commonly last 1–5 years. A contract can end long before the buildings are paid for. Terms vary between countries.
Few buyers. Limited exits.
Leaving requires another buyer within reach. When nearby processing options are limited, farmers may have little room to move.
These conditions can create dependency for some contract farmers. They do not establish that every connection shown by a dot is dependent.
COMPARE THE COMPANIES
Estimated share of the EU market
Each bar uses the whole EU poultry processing market as its denominator. Select a company to explore its details.
Source: AGtivist investigative analysis based on publicly available figures, Annexes A and B1, checked against the supplied company figures. Turnover estimates use differing reporting periods.