France's poultry industry has unveiled a 2.8 billion euro plan to build 2,200 poultry houses by 2035 to halt reliance on foreign meat imports.
More than one in two chickens consumed in France currently comes from abroad, with foreign supplies arriving mainly from Poland, Ukraine and Brazil. The ambitious domestic programme seeks to reduce that import share to just one third of national consumption over the next decade.
The construction drive will add 2,200 facilities to the 9,000 poultry houses already operating across the country. Sector leaders also intend to boost annual consumption from the current level of 25 kilograms per person to 30 kilograms per person by 2035.
Supermarket chicken consumption
Chicken has overtaken all other meats to become the top-selling meat in French supermarkets, according to a report by television network TF1 on its 1:00 pm news bulletin. Shoppers now buy chicken several times a week in the form of whole birds, escalopes and breaded cuts.
Consumption of chicken across France has risen by 25 percent over the past five years, lifting poultry ahead of pork as the country's most popular meat. Consumers have favoured chicken because it is leaner and less expensive than other meats, but French domestic production has failed to keep pace with demand.
French demand for poultry is currently expanding at a rate of 3 percent each year, driven largely by processed products, prepared ready-meals and mass catering. Supermarket discount ranges and restaurant chains have increasingly turned to cheap imported cuts to keep retail prices low during periods of high food inflation.
Fast-growing breeds in Dordogne
In the Dordogne department of southwestern France, local farmers are trying to win back market share by switching to fast-growing breeds. These modified chicks gain roughly 35 grams in weight in a single day and reach a slaughter weight of two kilograms in only three weeks.
Industry groups refer to these intensive industrial birds as everyday chickens, tailoring them for budget supermarket lines and processed poultry products. The push marks a significant commercial departure for French agriculture, which for decades concentrated primarily on premium poultry.
France has long focused on higher-quality birds, specifically free-range farm poultry and its prestigious Label Rouge certification. Established in 1960, the state-backed Label Rouge scheme enforces strict standards on outdoor access and slower animal growth, which left the high-volume market for cheap chicken in the hands of foreign industrial competitors.
Processing facilities are now altering their strategies to enter that entry-level market. In one slaughterhouse where poultry is packaged on an industrial assembly line, an agricultural cooperative continues to process certified birds while also ramping up discount production, expanding its low-cost output from one million birds last year to nearly 1.8 million today.
Farm expansion and cooperative targets
Individual farmers are committing substantial funds to expand capacity and compete on price. One poultry farmer interviewed in the TF1 report spent 750,000 euros to construct a modern shed capable of housing 40,000 additional birds at a time.
The farmer explained that producing meat on an industrial scale would make his operating costs far more competitive. He estimated that expanding his capacity would narrow the retail price difference between his poultry and foreign imports to between 10 and 15 percent.
The cooperative that markets his poultry currently produces 3 million chickens each year. The business has set a formal target to increase that figure by another 2 million birds by 2029, bringing its total annual output to 5 million.
Major foreign exporters currently enjoy significant structural advantages over French producers. Poland has become the largest poultry producer in the European Union through massive investments in modern automated facilities and lower labour costs, while suppliers in Ukraine and Brazil benefit from immense scale and direct access to cheap domestic feed supplies.
Environmental concerns and feed dependency
The aggressive expansion plan has drawn sharp resistance from environmental campaigners. The Foundation for Nature and Mankind, a prominent French ecological non-profit organisation, warned that entering what it described as a race for volumes exposes farmers and rural communities to severe financial and environmental risks.
The foundation pointed out that building thousands of industrial sheds requires heavy capital investments from farmers while deepening their dependence on imported soybeans for animal feed, as well as synthetic fertilizers and energy. European livestock farming relies heavily on South American soya meal imports to meet the high-protein dietary needs of fast-growing poultry flocks.
The ecological organisation also condemned the consequences of factory farming for animal welfare, public health and the surrounding natural environment. Rather than constructing thousands of new sheds, the foundation argued that France should pursue a de-intensification of livestock farming to build true, long-term food sovereignty.
