Agright adds significant broiler chicken meat production capacity to Australia and NZ

On August 7, 2024, Poultry Digest interviewed the CEO of Agright, Daniel Bryant at his North Sydney office.
Agright was established in 2019 and its first farm Wardville, located on the North Island of New Zealand, was completed in 2020.
Currently there are six free range sheds in operation. In 2022 Agright acquired an eight shed free range farm in the South Island of New Zealand and is finalising the construction of an additional eight sheds on that site.
The Australian based private equity fund, Pacific Equity Partners (PEP) is the major investor in Agright.
PEP is a highly successful company, which in 2023 The Australian Financial Review described as ‘Australia’s largest private equity firm’.
The firm is also highly focused on the ESG concerns of its growing investor base and supports Agright’s renewable energy expansion strategies.
Agright was started with support from four other shareholders. Matthew Bryant is the Manager of Agright’s New Zealand operation.
“The North Island farm supplies Inghams and the South Island farm
supplies Tegel,” Daniel told Poultry Digest.
Meriki, located to the North of Griffith in NSW, consists of two farms each of 20 sheds that commenced construction in 2023 and will be completed in 2025.
“Agright’s Meriki farm will operate independently of the electricity grid and the first farm is already operating using solar power, supplied by 4.5 MW of solar arrays linked to a 4.0 MW capacity battery and energy storage system.
“This project will be the first poultry farm constructed in Australia or NZ that is completely off grid,” Daniel stated.
The NZ based Bryant family were pioneers in the establishment of
corporate based broiler chicken meat farming, starting with a few sheds in 1995 and growing into a major enterprise (Proten), operating farms in Australia and NZ. ProTen was acquired by Aware Super in 2018.
The fact that Agright’s Meriki chicken farm was operating off grid, has attracted a lot of attention from media including the ABC.
The ABC’s Riverina based journalists interviewed Huon Hoogesteger, the CEO of Smart Commercial Solar, whose company designed and supplied the solar and battery energy storage
systems (BESS).
According to the ABC report generated by Monty Jacka, he revealed that “the Agright Meriki farm used 4 MW of farm generated solar power, supplying electricity to 40 large chicken barns and six staff houses”.
Lauren Hamilton, the Marketing Manager at Smart Commercial Solar, provided Poultry Digest with a link to detailed report https://www.smartcommercialsolar.com.au/resources/agright-meriki-abc-radio.
In July 2024, the digital publication onestepoffthegrid published an article by Sophie Vorrath, the Editor of onestepoffthegrid and Deputy Editor of the parent publication Renew Energy.
‘Clucking good power: Australia’s largest off grid farm runs on solar and batteries’ is the title of the detailed report.
Both these reports reveal in detail, the scope and aims of Agright’s plans to expand sustainable broiler production around the Griffith area.
When Poultry Digest interviewed Agright CEO Daniel Bryant, he expressed his disappointment at being rejected by the Federal Government for a grant to help develop a microgrid system in the Riverina region of NSW around the current Meriki farm.
Poultry Digest attended the Carbon Conversations forum organised by AgriFutures and the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water when the following initiative was first released.
The Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), announced in Canberra on November 23, 2023 provides a national framework to encourage new investment in renewable capacity, such as wind and solar, as well as clean dispatchable capacity, such as battery storage.
It aims to help build a more reliable, affordable and low-emissions energy system for all Australians.
The CIS involves the Australian Government seeking competitive tender bids for renewable capacity and clean dispatchable capacity projects to:
• deliver an additional 32 GW of capacity by 2030
• fill expected reliability gaps as ageing coal power stations exit
• deliver the Australian Government’s 82% renewable electricity by the 2030 target.
Revenue underwriting is being used domestically and globally to support investment into the energy transition.
According to Daniel, the rejection of financial support was based on the fact that there is a power grid in the region.
“However, it is only single phase and the needs of complex and energy hungry broiler rearing facilities require a more reliable and stable three phase system,” he told Poultry Digest.
“That’s why we commissioned Smart Commercial Solar to design and construct our solar panel/battery system already in operation,” he added.
On September 5, 2024 the much anticipated Climate Change Authority released its review of the potential technology transition and emissions pathways for the Australian government to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The review considers the pathways for six sectors – agriculture and land, the built environment, electricity and energy, industry and waste, transport and resources – to decarbonise.
One of the key recommendations revealed by the head of The Authority, Matt Kean, was that “Eating more chicken (as well as pork and kangaroo meat) and less lamb and beef would help to reduce land and agricultural emissions,” according to a report published in the Australian Financial Review ‘Food Choices’ written by Ronald Mizen on September 6, 2024 .
Chicken meat is now firmly established as Australia’s favourite protein source with 50 kg per person per annum being consumed currently.
Not only that, but the fact that it is the most affordable meat source, poultry meat production already has a low carbon footprint.
So you might think that our government (whose own advisors recommend higher chicken meat consumption) might want to help the Agright enterprise to expand its renewable energy microgrid enterprise as they increase broiler production capacity.
“Since the restrictions on travel, and thus immigration numbers caused by COVID have ceased, more than 500,000 new consumers have arrived in Australia and 150,000 have landed in New Zealand,” Daniel stated.
“Those statistics alone, apart from affordability and recognized health benefits of chicken meat, drive the need for a significant increase in broiler meat production capacity,” he said.
“The sheds are nearing completion are now helping to meet the increasing demand.
“We have been pleased with our key suppliers including Smart Commercial Solar though a project of this size and dealing with new technologies presents plenty of challenges,” Daniel said.
Ryan-Ryte built the sheds and Daniel stated he was very happy with the quality of the construction.
Patarker has supplied most of the vital equipment for rearing chickens.
Michael Bigeni from Pataker told Poultry Digest that the Agright Meriki farm sheds are fitted with an innovative new heater, the Yahtec ATLX Indirect gas system.
“The Yahtec ATLX has Australian Gas Association (AGA) approval.
“Key benefits include the indirect fired design of operation which prevents CO2 emissions inside the building, thus reducing the requirement to introduce fresh air,” Michael told Poultry Digest.
“This leads to a reduction of energy consumption by up to 25% when compared to other more conventional heating options.
“Less CO2 means that less ventilation is needed, which in turn means less humidity in the shed. Also being indirect fired, there is no combustive flame inside the building,” he added.
“Other key products supplied by Patarker for the Meriki Agright project, include Fancom controllers linked to the Fantura vent system that delivers precise automated climate control for broiler housing.
Patarker also supplied the Munters combination transitional EM50 Fans ansd variable speed Saturn Fans.
“The new ROXELL CoMeo feed pan which is part of the automated pan feeding system for broilers has been supplied by Patarker for the Meriki farm.
“This feeding system prevents the birds from entering the pan but delivers clean feed that is easily accessible.
A lot of the design features of this feeding system “are covered by a few patents which Roxell states cannot be found at other suppliers of poultry feed systems,” information on their company web site states.
Apart from Smart Commercial Solar’s contribution to the energy
supply strategy at Meriki, Daniel Bryant mentioned a number of suppliers with a specific role in the success of the off grid farm.
These are Sungrow (battery storage and inverters), Hunter PV (procurement partner), Jinko (PV panels), SolSrv and Aquared Electrical (installation partners) Green Generation (Control System and Implementation) and FTC Solar
(trackers).
Key statistics for the Meriki Project are :- Annual energy consumption 411kMWh; annual CO2 reduction of 1698.3 t; annual battery consumed 930.5 MWh andannual solar consumed 1575.4MWh.
Apart from the obvious advantages of being able to reduce long term energy costs while reducing emissions off grid, energy projects like Meriki offer both broiler growers and their integrators another key benefit – biosecurity.
As broiler farms get larger in order to achieve lower costs of production, as well as being able to keep pace with growing consumer demand, they still face the threat of disease, as the current AI crisis has demonstrated.
With the ability to construct farms with an in-built energy supply comes the potential protection of a remote location.
This lessens the likelihood of disease reaching these farms in the first place, and if it does, the ability to better isolate those remote located properties from other poultry production operations.
When the Meriki project is completed, Agright is in the process of constructing another farm in the same area.
Then the idea is to establish a grid connection so that the solar/battery system at Meriki will be able to supply both farms as well as providing services to the grid.
Daniel states that the future aim is to be able to supply the next farm from the existing system.
“We are already working in collaboration with the grid network owner,
Essential Energy and this means that we don’t have to build another large scale solar/battery installation.
That presents the opportunity for an added benefit of our energy strategy for the future,” Daniel said.