Poultry
Cargill’s European poultry business is a leading supplier and innovator of primary and further processed chicken products for retail, food service and food manufacturing customers.
In France, the business has implemented a fully integrated, localised supply chain for its further processing plant in Orléans, predominantly producing breaded chicken products from a number of approved suppliers in France, Holland and other areas of the world.
Cargill has been a leading provider of breaded chicken products to McDonald’s France for more than 20 years. Cargill supplies Chicken McNuggets ™, as well as the breaded chicken used in sandwiches, wraps and salads served in around 3000 McDonald’s restaurants in France and Europe.
Traceability from farm to fork
Cargill is able to monitor the whole supply chain from farm to restaurant to ensure high process and food safety standards.
By partnering with suppliers, Cargill has implemented a highly efficient traceability system. On the farm, each new batch of chicks is given a unique number that means their origin can be traced. At the slaughterhouse and then the production site, consignments of meat are identified by batch numbers and finally at the end of production, a manufacturing code appears on the bags of final product. Checks are performed every hour throughout the entire production process. Cargill is able to trace every finished product back to its original batch of meat within three hours and the system is tested regularly.
French rearing standards
In France, the chickens are reared within specially controlled environments that are managed with strict bio-security procedures to provide protection from potential illness and predators.
They are:
- Able to roam freely and to express natural behaviours, with unrestricted access to food and fresh water
- Monitored a minimum of twice daily
- Provided with a balanced vegetarian diet, made from wheat, corn, soy, rapeseed meal, vitamins and minerals