‘Slow-growing’ chickens don’t have to be the next ‘antibiotic-free’ trend

 The chicken industry can blunt the increasing calls from consumers for slow-growing broilers before the trend takes off like antibiotic-free has if companies change the way they market to millennial consumers. “Slow-growth will be the next antibiotic-free,” Richard Kottmeyer, senior managing partner of Farm 2 Fork Advisory Services, told attendees here at the Chicken Marketing Summit. “If it is, it will be your fault.” Kottmeyer called slow-growing chickens “a farce,” and the millennial’s way of saying to chicken processors that, “I just don’t trust you to do the right thing, so let’s go back in time before things were so corporate.” He said it comes down to millennials thinking that chickens grow too fast these days because companies are pumping them full of drugs. As such, Kottmeyer suggested that the industry take advantage of millennial’s noted trust for pet veterinarians and have animal vets communicate simple, common sense messages about the healthy attributes and importance of methods used in conventional broiler production.