Rainbow Chicken has reopened its doors at the Hammarsdale plant, west of Durban and has re-hired retrenched staff. Picture: Stock Image
To celebrate their 60 years in business, Rainbow Chicken announced on Monday that they are reopening the Hammarsdale plant and will re-employ 750 employees who were retrenched in 2017.
Six years ago, 1 350 workers lost their jobs when the company closed its Hammarsdale based operations citing “economic pressure”.
The company also suffered a severe blow following the practice of chicken dumping by the European Union, which resulted in products being sold below cost in South Africa.
In a statement issued by Rainbow Chicken, they said they have re-instated roughly 750 jobs, with an additional 100 jobs to be initiated by June 2024.
Managing director of Rainbow Chicken, Marthinus Stander, said the company is getting back on its feet and moving forward with business.
“We are revisiting the brilliant basics and rebuilding our assets – it cannot be done without our people. We are pleased to re-employ retrenched staff. We are going back to the double shifts at Hammarsdale. I thank our customers for their support over the years. As we commemorate the journey and milestones of our 60th anniversary we pay homage to everyone who has played a role in getting us where we are. We look forward to a bright future ahead. We are Rainbow, one team, one dream,” said Mr Stander.
Rainbow Chicken opened the R220 million plant in Hammarsdale on Monday.
The opening was attended by Agriculture and Land Reform Minister Thoko Didiza and Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ibrahim Patel.
Minister Patel said government was happy that its efforts to protect the local poultry industry from unfair competition had yielded results. He said the government had to intervene in 2017 when industry giant,
Rainbow Chicken, closed down some of its plants because of cheap imports, which he referred to as, “market dumping” by foreign countries. He said drought and bird flu had also impacted the industry. But cheap imports were the major reason for the downfall as local chicken breeders had to compete unfairly in the market.
Rainbow Chicken is also in the process of building two R400 million plants. The company announced that it was producing 1.1 million chickens a week and was hoping to reach 1.5 million a week.
“We provide 18.5 million meals per year so the footprint of this industry in terms of what it can do in job creation, food security, rural development and improving the livelihoods of so many South Africans is very significant,” said Mr Stander.
“Our poultry master plan is about creating capacity, stimulating demand for chicken, growing exports, transformation, bringing in farmers and bringing players into the industry that were previously excluded.”