Ogg Farm and Winteringham Farm, which supply chickens for 2 Sisters Food Group’s poultry factory on Scunthorpe’s Foxhill Estate, were both hit by floods caused by a tidal surge up the River Humber. Both farms are located close to the Humber estuary.
The company has been forced to switch to other producers to maintain levels of poultry meat supply to customers and said it would take some time before the farms recovered.
However, its links with hundreds of UK farms enabled the firm to react swiftly to the impact of the flood, minimising its effects on the business.
“Ogg Farm will be restocked with birds in hopefully six to nine months’ time,” said a spokesman for 2 Sisters Food Group.
‘Much more severe’
“Winteringham farm is much more severe in that structurally the houses are unsafe and the floors are now cracking, so whilst no decision has yet been taken it looks like a total rebuild … It looks like it’s going to be a year before both farms are fully up and running again.”
Repairs to Winteringham alone could cost up to £500,000, he said.
Staff on the two farms had been given alternative employment within 2 Sisters Food Group until the sites were completely refurbished, the company confirmed.
700,000 chickens killed
Some press reports claimed 700,000 chickens had been killed in the flood.
2 Sisters Food Group employs 9,500 people in its poultry division alone and a total of 24,000 people across the whole of its UK operations.
The poultry division consists of primary sites where chickens are delivered from nearby farms and cutting sites where the portioning, deboning and filleting of chicken takes place.