Poultry continues to dominate French feed production
French animal feed production saw a modest rise in 2025, reaching 18.88 million tonnes, which is a 1.1% increase over the previous year, according to SNIA. Poultry feed continues to dominate.
Despite multiple animal disease outbreaks in France last year — including avian influenza, lumpy skin disease in cattle, and bluetongue in cattle and sheep — growth was primarily driven by rising cattle feed demand.
The largest portion of just over 8 million tonnes, however, was for poultry, up 0.9% when compared to the previous year.
- Laying hens took 2.7 million tonnes, an increase of just 0.7%
- Broiler chickens were fed some 3.4 million tonnes, which was 4.3% more
- Feed for ducks was down 5.5% to almost 950.000 tonnes
Cattle, pigs, goats and sheep
The growth in national feed production was largely driven by cattle, thanks to higher prices for milk and beef during the whole of the year, despite a complicated sanitary situation and the continuing decrease of the cattle herd, SNIA analyses. Feed for dairy cows showed an increase of 4.6% to almost 3 million tonnes while products for other cattle increased by only 0.2% to 1.16 million tonnes.
Parallel with the decrease of the pig herd, feed for those farmers saw a decrease of 0.9% to almost 4.1 million tonnes. In the fourth quarter of 2025, pig feed was 2.8% less y-o-y. Pig farming also encountered problems because of difficulties by the transfer of farms to younger farmers, SNIA noted.
Furthermore, the French feed industry also produced 720,000 tonnes for goats and sheep as well as 578,000 tonnes of feed for other farm animals including rabbits and horses.
Innovation and renewal needed
“The feed industry confirmed its mobilisation in the face of the environmental, economic and human challenges,” SNIA said during a joint meeting of organisations in the feed sector. “One of the first challenges is to keep the jobs in the industry attractive to support the generational renewal. The competitiveness of our companies is strongly linked to innovation, whether it´s about more agile purchase strategies, better formulas to improve the feed effectiveness or the necessary modernisation of the production facilities.”
