The industry, in numbers

Two chains run side by side. Integrated producers — 10–15% of broiler output — own the parent stock, the hatchery, the feed mill and often the processing plant, and contract out the growing. Their growers are paid a fee and carry no price risk.

Independent farms are everything else: they buy chicks and feed at whatever the day’s price is, carry the full price risk, and sell into the mandi through brokers. This is where two thirds of the country’s chicken comes from.

Feed is 60–75% of an independent farmer’s cost, chicks another 10–15%. So profit is decided by two input prices the farmer does not control and one output price they cannot see in advance.

A live bird leaves the farm at around PKR 300/kg and reaches the consumer between 495 and 730. Dressing loss explains part of that spread. Market structure explains the rest.

Formal bank credit to the sector runs at roughly PKR 21–22bn against an invested base above PKR 1,056bn — under 2% penetration. The rest of the sector’s working capital is dealer credit, priced silently into feed and chick invoices.

Logistics losses are estimated at around 20% of poultry product, largely because there are no holding centres: a bird that is ready must be sold that day, at whatever the market offers.