Ukraine’s largest poultry producer has restarted exports as the world chicken prices have soared after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Ukraine is one of the six largest exporters of chicken in the world and the third-biggest supplier in the EU. In the last pre-war year of 2021, Ukraine exported over 450,000 tons of poultry, supplying Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the biggest Ukrainian agricultural companies, including MHP, Ukrlandfarming, Astarta, and Kernel, have been struggling to continue production and exports of grains and poultry and have refocused on supplying Ukraine’s army and civilians.

This together with Ukraine’s inability to export grains used as feed because the Russian navy blockades Ukraine’s ports, has pushed up chicken prices in Brazil, one of the other large poultry exporters that could replace Ukrainian poultry on the global market. All of this has raised chicken prices around the world, from the UK and the EU to Lebanon and India.

However, recently, MHP, Ukraine’s largest poultry producer, has boosted production at its poultry plants in the Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, and Dnipro regions and resumed chicken exports.

“We have started poultry exports using trucks and in the nearest time expect to increase export volumes,” MHP chief financial officer Viktoria Kapelyushnaya said. The company is also considering exporting by railways.