Chickmont Food Limited Invests $35 Million in Boosting Barbados' Food Security and Poultry Supply

Chickmont Food Limited is stepping up with $35 million in investments to boost Barbados’ food security, especially as it relates to the supply of chicken and eggs.

Barbados’ growing appetite for poultry was evident last year as producers grappled with higher demand, but Dominic De Freitas, managing director of Chickmont parent company Montrose Holdings Limited, said several initiatives were planned to improve the sector’s ability to satisfy the home market, before selling any excess to the region.

“Chickmont is endeavouring on a serious food supply initiative and mission to keep Barbados fed and keep food security top of mind. We are stepping up to the plate and investing $35 million total in our full food supply chain from chickens to eggs,” he said in an interview yesterday at the group’s Balls Plantation headquarters in Christ Church.

De Freitas said the major investments comprised the expansion of the company’s chicken processing plant by about 15 000 square feet, The construction of five large chicken houses in St Philip for an additional 225 000 chickens, a large expansion of the eggs division focusing on cage-free layers and the construction of a new food distribution hub to include a large cold storage facility.

The managing director also said that with the several projects expected to provide an unspecified number of new jobs, Chickmont was already increasing the number of workers in the processing plant and paying them above minimum wage, while also expanding the number of contract growers.

“At our processing plant, we are looking to do a large expansion at about 15 000 square feet of more freezers to house additional cut-up lines and additional boneless breast production lines,” De Freitas said.

“It is a significant investment in the plant, making it more efficient and adding different machines to be able to cut different parts of the chicken. It will be a stateof-the art facility. “This is also going to aid in more products for the growing hotel sector and also more products for the quick service sector, which is also growing at a rapid rate. We are seeing more fast food operators now wanting to come to Barbados, and coming to Barbados,” he said.

De Freitas said the five chicken houses planned for St Philip would be some of the largest in the Caribbean, accommodating 45 000 chickens each and would be “all brand new, fully mechanised and fully climate-controlled chicken houses”.

“We are also doing a large expansion of our egg division. We want to build cage-free so these would be on-the-ground layers in nests. This is going to be a special area.”

Regarding the food distribution hub earmarked for Balls, De Freitas said it would include cold storage capacity for five million pounds of product, “providing support for the hotels, the growing segment of fast food/quick service and Barbados, in general, which is trying to attract more people to work and live here as well”.

De Freitas said the hope was that the various projects would commence between the end of this year and in 2026, with the key objective to meet Barbados poultry products needs first.

“We are looking to target more exports of chicken, including boneless breast production to sell outside to the CARICOM region. There is a big demand for boneless breast products in Barbados, especially from the tourism industry, and also in the region but Barbados is first priority,” he said.

De Freitas noted that Chickmont works with stakeholders, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Barbados Egg and the Poultry Producers Association and Barbados Agricultural Society to keep up-to-date poultry industry statistics.

He reported that the overall poultry industry produced “more broilers in 2024 than any other year” – 10.8 million chickens – at a time of unprecedented demand.

“The increases in mortality bring that number down in the end product and that number needs to go to 12 million. We are part of the solution to help increase it, including by empowering more farmers,” he said.

De Freitas said Chickmont was partnering with more contract growers, including those building new facilities or others with existing capacity. This was also the case in relation to the supply of eggs.

“Barbados’ layer production, year-on-year it dips but it is stable, usually at 200 000 layers. It has increased in the past but the problem now that we are facing is the heat-related mortality,” he said.

“This year, though, we are planning to increase those numbers and we are also getting concessions from the feed mills for more layer production because we need to stimulate more layer production.” (SC)