Marketing New England Poultry 



4. Structure and Efficiency of the 

 Assembly System 



By George B. Rogers and Edwin T. Bardwell* 

 1. Background of Study 



Marked changes have taken place in the pouhry industry in New Eng- 

 land and in the United States in the last two decades. Technological ad- 

 vances in production, assembly, processing and packaging, transporta- 

 tion, and distribution have enabled the industry to reduce costs and to 

 furnish consumers with larger quantities of higher quality poultry at 

 lower prices. 



Previous reports in this series on the marketing of New England poult- 

 ry have dealt with (1) the characteristics of the processing industry, 

 and (2) the costs and economies of scale in chicken processing. The 

 first report was concerned primarily with description of poultry pro- 

 ducing areas and plants in New England, including problems of plant 

 organization and equipment, buying and selling practices, and assem- 

 bling and distributing methods. The second report presented detailed 

 analyses of the costs and economies of scale in the processing of broilers 

 and fowl. This report, the fourth, summarizes the changing character- 

 istics of the assembly system, describes the techniques and practices 

 used, and the costs involved. However, the value of the report is not 

 expected to be limited to the New England poultry industry. Assemblers 

 in other regions of the United States are confronted with many of the 

 same problems and physical and economic conditions that New England 

 live assemblers currently face. 



The advent of contract growing, increased specialization of certain 

 areas in commercial meat chicken production, and larger producing and 

 marketing units have facilitated volume handling of live birds. In addi- 

 tion, the shift of poultry processing toward large-scale country plants has 

 enabled the assembly function to become more localized. Hence, the 

 number of assembly firms has declined sharply, their characteristics 

 have changed and assembly has become more closely-integrated with 

 growing and processing. ^ 



* Mr. Rogers is Agricultural Economist, Marketing Economics Division, Economic 

 Research Service, U.S.D.A. Mr. Bardwell is Cooperative Agent, New Hampshire and 

 Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Stations and Economic Research Service, 

 U.S.D.A. stationed at the University of New Hampshire. 



1 Rogers, G. B., E. T. Bardwell and D. L. Deoss, Declining Numbers of Live Poul- 

 try Dealers in New England; Causes and Effects. Agr. Exp. Sta. Univ. of New Hamp. 

 Agricultural Economics Research Mimeograph No. 16, Dec. 1957. 



