Bird flu ‘obviously’ will hit Ingham’s, chief executive says

The boss of chicken giant Ingham’s says a dangerous strain of bird flu starting to be found in wild birds will “obviously” make its way into poultry at some point.

While the dangerous H5N1 strain of avian influenza has been found in wild birds in every state of Australia, the virus has not been found in any poultry.

Speaking on Friday, Ingham’s chief executive Edward Alexander said bird flu would be found at an Inghams farm at some point as confirmed cases in wild birds increase.

“Assume bird flu does hit, it’ll hit, obviously, one of our farms,” Mr Alexander said.

“And at that point we’ve got separation across farms. Within a two-kilometre radius it’s problematic.”

Killing those birds – “depopulating” – would constrain the virus to just that farm’s chickens, he said.

Mr Alexander pointed to Ingham’s spread of farms, feed mills, processing and distribution across the country as a key protection for keeping an outbreak contained.

“We’ve designed our farms and our spreading of farms with biosecurity in mind,” he said.

“I’m not concerned that there’ll be a large-scale breakout at, for instance, a processing facility, because it becomes more of a farming issue.”

The strain re-emerged in Europe in 2021 and has killed millions of birds, seals and sea lions across the globe.

More than 700 commercial poultry flocks in 23 European countries were infected in 2025, and 300 infections have been found in 16 European countries this year.

“Senior management have spent time in Europe understanding learnings from their experience,” Mr Alexander said.

“We know what we would do. We know how we would respond, and we know where the critical decisions ultimately need to be made.

“This is a real and a significant risk for the poultry industry, as has been well documented in recent media. We take this risk extremely seriously and we are prepared for it.”