Search and destroy at the chicken farm

PHUKET: This week has been Clean Your Chicken Farm Week. Starting on Monday, the Phuket Provincial Livestock Office (PPLO) initiated a campaign to destroy any viruses in chicken farms and chicken meat companies in Phuket. While the campaign has been deemed successful, PPLO Chief Sunart Wongchawalit and Vice-Governor Niran Kalayanamit took matters into their hands yesterday morning, personally administering the anti-viral spray at Phuket Chicken Meat Co (PCMC), the largest chicken meat supplier on the island. K. Sunart said, “We are [doing this] to eliminate diseases and to give people renewed confidence that chicken is safe to eat. We are saving the chicken-raisers and sending a message to people that they should not be afraid of eating chicken or eggs.” After spraying away at Phuket Chicken Meat Co, V/Gov Niran sat down with K. Sunart for a confidence-boosting meal of fried chicken. The Managing Director of PCMC, Pradit Ongsuntipap said, “Our sales are up 60% to 70% compared with three months ago. [Before the avian ‘flu crisis] we used to sell 3,500 to 4,000 chicken a day. Then [during the crisis] sales went down to 500 to 1,000 chickens a day. “We went from a turnover of as much as 500,000 baht a day to 40,000 baht, but now we are back up to 200,000 baht. “One reason for the improvement is that public confidence in our product has risen because we check every chicken before it is slaughtered and brought into Phuket. “We are certain that public confidence will recover completely and we are planning to spend over 100 million baht on enlarging and improving our facilities.”