The Commerce Commission has received a clearance application from Inghams Enterprises (NZ) Pty Limited (Inghams) to acquire the assets of the Cobb Commercial and Riverland businesses of Bromley Park Hatcheries Limited.
Inghams is part of Inghams Group Limited, an Australian-based poultry company that has breeding operations, hatcheries, contract growing and processing operations. Inghams produces day-old chicks for its own manufacturing needs but does not sell them to third parties.
Bromley Park Hatcheries is a producer of day-old chicks. Its operations include breeder farms and a hatchery. Bromley Park Hatcheries has three business units, the Cobb Commercial business (which sells day-old chicks to poultry growers and processors), the Riverland business (which sells Cobb parent stock to the Pacific Islands) and the Shaver/SXB business (which produces day-old chicks for egg production only).
This clearance application concerns Inghams’ proposed acquisition of the Cobb Commercial and Riverland businesses, which have operations in the North Island of New Zealand. Inghams is not seeking clearance to acquire the Shaver/SXB business.
A public version of the clearance application will be available shortly on the Commission’s case register.
Background
In New Zealand, breeders import ‘grandparent’ eggs, which are hatched and become ‘parent breeder stock’. The parent breeder stock then produces eggs for either broiler chicken production or egg production.
The eggs laid by the parent breeder stock are kept in hatcheries, generally until the day they hatch. Once they have hatched, day-old chicks that are used for broiler chickens are placed on growing farms. There, the growers grow the chicks until they are ready for processing by broiler chicken processors, such as Inghams. The chickens are then processed into different products that are sold to supermarkets, food service providers or quick service restaurants.
We will give clearance to a proposed merger if we are satisfied that the merger is unlikely to have the effect of substantially lessening competition in a market.
