US chicken exports may slip in '09-Sanderson

Published: 27 Apr 2009 20:25:32 PST

CHICAGO, March 17 - U.S. chicken exports may be down in 2009 from the 2008 pace due to tight credit around the world and weak global economies, but the decline should not be severe, said Joe Sanderson, chief executive at No. 4 U.S. chicken producer Sanderson Farms Inc.

"We think exports are going to be OK this year. There is not going to be a big drop-off in exports," Sanderson said at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago on Tuesday.

"I think a conservative assumption would be that exports out of the U.S. will not be quite as robust as they were a year ago," he said. (For summit blog: http://blogs.reuters.com/summits/) (For more on the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit, see ID:nSP463170)