A year of investing into its business has paid off says poultry franchise, Lenard’s Chicken.

It comes at a time when competition is tough with the likes of Steggles, Baiada and the supermarkets offering cheap chooks in attempts to win over consumers.

Announcing its 2016 Christmas trading results, Lenard’s Chicken said it achieved a 25 per cent increase in like for like turkey and Christmas festive product sales in 2016.

In addition, 80 Lenard’s stores sold more turkey and Christmas festive products than in 2015 and 42 stores increased their sales by more than 50 per cent.

Chief Executive Officer of Lenard’s, Chris Caldwell, said the results came after a year of continuous growth for the company.

“Last year, we embarked on an exciting new chapter in Lenard’s’ 30-year journey,” he said.

“We invested significantly in store refurbishments, marketing and product innovation to make 2016 Lenard’s’ best year yet,” Caldwell said.

“To maximise reach and sales during our peak Christmas period, we implemented a strategy to ensure relevancy for consumers. This meant revising our packaging designs and product range to include a simplified sizing range of whole turkeys, ready-to-cook turkey products and stuffing flavours free from ingredients containing gluten,” he said.

Value-added products perform well

Caldwell said while sales of the whole, pre-cooked and oven ready turkey ranges performed well, the festive value added lines contributed significantly to overall growth of 25 per cent, with 22.75 per cent attributed to festive value add sales.

“Our new value added festive lines including chicken pinwheels, cranberry and black cherry bon bons and festive sausages, were a game changer for us this Christmas,” Caldwell said.

“We are becoming more relevant to more Australians as we continue to respond to increased demand for fresh, high quality ingredients and convenient meal-time solutions, and look forward to continuing this successful trajectory into 2017,” Caldwell concluded.

Tough competition

Lenard’s Christmas success comes at a time when its competitors are also making their own moves to win customers.

In November 2016, Australia’s largest chicken producer, Ingham’s, floated on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) with hopes of growth in the future.

In October 2016, Roy Morgan Research released its latest statistics on Australia’s chicken purchasing habits, revealing that cheap supermarket BBQ chickens were biting into the profits of fast food retailers which specialise in selling chicken.

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