The company, which held a ribbon cutting ceremony Jan. 3, plans to employ nearly 200 people. In 2013, K&N Foods spent more than $5 million for the purchase and renovation of a former Birds Eye plant.
K&N Foods plans to sell halal chicken products in the United States and Canada under the "K&N Foods USA, LLC" brand name, according to the US Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). The company will focus on value-added processing of poultry from other slaughter plants. Key market segments for K&N Foods products will be specialty ethnic stores, supermarkets and food service operations, FAS reported.
“FAS-Islamabad has worked closely with K&N’s to facilitate imports of US poultry stock to Pakistan and assist in development of the new processing facility in the United States,” the agency said in its Global Agricultural Information Network report. “The firm’s owner and CEO, Mr. Khalil Sattar, is a close contact of FAS. The FAS office provided assistance with visa referrals and by arranging meetings in the United States for company leaders and managers as they assessed the market, established the plant, and trained the staff in Halal practices.”
K&N Foods entered the poultry business in 1964 and grew into a modern vertically-integrated operation encompassing feed-milling, grandparent operations, parent stock production, pullet growing, hatching, broiler production and poultry processing, the agency noted. In Pakistan, K&N Foods owns six broiler chicken growing facilities with capacities of 250,000 to 300,000 birds. The company owns more than 60 percent market share of frozen and value added chicken products, FAS reported, and the primary sales outlet for K&N products is a chain of K&N Chicken Stores located in Pakistan's 15 largest cities.
Part of K&N Food’s success has come through its strong relationship with Cobb-Vantress Inc., a poultry supply firm. K&N introduced into Pakistan the Cobb 500, the world’s most efficient breed of parents and broilers. Cobb-Vantress and K&N Foods also provide training to Pakistani farmers through seminars conducted by US experts.
