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relationships across the poultry industry and strengthened Gafoor’ s central approach.
Furthermore, competition and collaboration go hand in hand. Poultry processors might compete in some markets while supporting each other’ s supply chains in others.“ Two Sisters and Cranswick are two of our largest customers. We supply both businesses with chicken every day because our bird profile is well suited to food manufacturing,” Mark notes.
Aligning with future demand
Technology plays a big role in keeping that position. Like many poultry businesses, Gafoor operates in a market where production costs keep rising while customers stay focused on value. Staying efficient means constant investment.“ The poultry industry has always been at the forefront of investing in machinery and technology. The challenge over the last 20 or 30 years is that costs keep going up, but retail prices don’ t reflect those increases. The industry keeps finding new ways to take cost out of the manufacturing process to protect margins,” Mark explains.
Gafoor’ s answer has been steady investment in automation and processing technology.“ From the moment the bird comes into the factory until it’ s deboned, the process is fully automated; no human hands touch the product,” he says.
Automation now handles most of the core processing, while employees focus on quality, packing, and value-added production. Investments in cutting technology let Gafoor meet customer specs with more precision as manufacturers outsource more prep work.
The focus now is on getting more value from what Gafoor already produces, not just increasing bird numbers. Investments
Mark Rooza
in automation, deboning, and valueadded processing help the business deliver what customers want and create new routes to market.“ We wouldn’ t make that investment or produce extra volume without having the sales for that product. The two things go hand in hand,” Mark observes.
Now that Gafoor has hit its original five-year processing targets, the company is entering another phase of expansion.“ We’ re happy with the number of birds we process. We reached the target we set five years ago: 250,000 birds
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