Sciwag,

$45M would represent about 15% of the GROSS profits of a company processing that number of broilers per week.

As you can see, even 2 cents per bird savings translates into a substantial improvement to the bottom line.

The poultry business is built on margins of pennies and even fractions of pennies.  That is one reason that so much testing is required.  It is possible for the results in a trial to be skewed, resulting in unrealistic projections.  Producers want to manage their own trials and confirm, then re-confirm the results obtained by others.  Producers can't afford to make a wrong move, so they are extremely cautious in moving forward.

However, with the profit potential identified above, there is strong motivation to continue moving forward, despite the caution.

-zties