By Aabigayle McIntosh

A chicken meat plant is to be established here in three months or so.

The operations will be manned by two investors representing a firm that exports chicken parts.

They will be building a factory in which hundreds of broilers will be raised and slaughtered for local consumption and feet will be exported.

Chief of Staff within the Prime Minister’s Office Lionel Hurst spoke to the development on Thursday.

“We spend millions of dollars every year on imported chicken meat and we think that we can plug that and these two investors represent an opportunity to grow chicken for meat in Antigua and Barbuda and to sell the feet the chicken feet to a market they are hoping to develop,” he said.

He said freezers will have to be equipped with freezers and chillers that will occupy more than 3,000 square feet of space.

The building should be up and running within 3 months and the purchase of equipment after an additional 3-month period.

Hurst also notes while most Poultry Farmers are focused on egg production, the aim is to broaden that scope.

“The vast majority of our expenditure on chicken meat that is distributed throughout Antigua and Barbuda is imported chicken meat there are a few farms that engage in selling butchering and selling chicken meat but it’s not done on an industrial scale anywhere in Antigua”, Hurst said.