Poultry: Trading
A huge market with no futures: who sets the price?
What this tab covers How and where it is bought and sold: who buys and sells, exchanges and benchmarks, contract types, the big trading houses and how prices are discovered.Chicken has no liquid futures market. Most is sold under contracts between integrators and retailers or restaurant chains, often on formula or fixed prices. Wholesale prices are assessed by price reporters such as Urner Barry in the US. Producers hedge feed instead, through CBOT corn and soybean meal futures or DCE soybean meal in China. Morgan shows the grain houses moving into feed milling and broilers after 1950, with Cargill supplying Asian producers with breeding stock and feed formulas (pdf pp. 239, 250-251).
Where it is bought (buyers)
- Supermarkets and quick-service chains buy chilled and frozen chicken under contracts with integrators
- Importers in Japan, Mexico, the UK, the EU, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Philippines buy frozen chicken by the container
- In India, traders and meat shops buy live birds from integrators at daily farm-gate rates
Where it is sold (sellers)
- Brazilian, US, EU, Thai and Chinese integrators export frozen and cooked chicken
- Indian integrators sell mainly live birds into the domestic market
Exchanges and benchmarks
| Venue | Contract | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| None liquid | no actively traded broiler futures | producers hedge feed through CBOT maize and soybean meal futures instead |
| CBOT (CME Group) | Corn and Soybean Meal futures | used by integrators to hedge feed costs |
| NCDEX | Maize futures | Indian feed-cost reference when trading is active |
Contract types
- Grower contracts paying a fee per kg of live bird
- Cost-plus or fixed-price supply contracts with retailers and restaurant chains
- Container-lot export contracts, often with halal certification for Muslim markets
Top trading houses
- Integrator-exporters sell directly; specialist meat importers and distributors handle Asian, African and Middle Eastern demand
How prices are discovered
- USDA AMS national composite broiler and parts prices
- Expana (formerly Urner Barry) wholesale assessments
- CEPEA chicken price indicators in Brazil
- Daily farm-gate broiler rates published by Indian integrators and traders