Our export business has been good over the years. Even 50 years ago my father was exporting pheasants – in 1966 when I was 11 years old we visited a customer of my father’s in Italy (his name was Enzo Berner). We have good success exporting pheasants to Canada – when the Canadian dollar was weaker against the U.S. dollar, we had somewhat less Canadian business. Today, the Canadian dollar is stronger against the U.S. dollar than I ever recall, and we have more Canadian business than ever before. Two of our largest customers of mature pheasants are located in Canada.
We also have a good base of customers of pheasant eggs and pheasant chicks in England and Ireland. The U.K. market is very interested in U.S. pheasant genetics – and because of our proximity to Chicago O’Hare – we have been able to successfully ship eggs and chicks to the U.K. A few years ago the English pound and the EU Dollar we both strong (i.e. the U.S. dollar was weak) but today the dollar is stronger against European currencies and the effect is less business for us in Europe.
We shipped several shipments of eggs this year to Tajikistan – an independent country landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People’s Republic of China to the east. I considered traveling to Tajikistan to visit my pheasants but thought twice about it.
Hopefully, our export business will continue to grow.