By Leonardo Blair, Staff ReporterTHE PRICE of chicken meat is expected to go up by some seven per cent in the coming months after being increased several times already since the start of the year.
Dr. Keith Amiel, corporate affairs manager at Caribbean Broilers Jamaica Limited, told The Gleaner Tuesday that chicken prices are expected to rise gradually over the next two months.
"We won't be doing it in one blow, it will be done in stages, maybe 3 1/2 in the first month and another 3 1/2 in the following month," explained Dr. Amiel.
Several chicken distributors said Tuesday that the price for chicken had already gone up several times since the start of the year, moving from just over $111 per kilogramme since the start of the year to the current average of $119.
"The price of chicken meat has gone up several times since this year," confirmed Mark Brown, a representative of MegaMart in Portmore, St. Catherine.
"Sometimes they (distributors) would send us a memo and at other times it would be by word of mouth. Other times you would just see the increase on your bill. As a matter of fact, they (Best Dressed Chicken) told us last week Friday that there will be an increase tomorrow (today)," explained Mr. Brown.
PRODUCT PRICES
Some fast food restaurants such as the Jamaican-based Island Grill have been absorbing the increases for sometime now but consumers may soon start to feel the effects on product prices.
"Our suppliers of chicken meat have advised us that we have already had a couple of increases as a result of (an increase in) the grain coming out of the U.S. We haven't increased the prices of any of our products since the start of the year but we will be increasing our prices at some point," said Erica Hanson, marketing co-ordinator at Island Grill. "Right now it is just a wait and see situation because we are not really certain what is happening in the market, we can't say it will be a definite month or two but prices will be going up," she added.
Despite reactions however, David Radlein, marketing manager at Jamaica Broilers said, "we at this point haven't planned an increase. Nothing that I am aware of, maybe our competitors."
According to Dr. Amiel, "the price of corn and soy change by the minute like stocks on the stock market."
He explained that a recent decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Depart (FDA) to ban animal feeds containing animal droppings and other blood products has pushed up the demand for the soybean and corn alternative which are more expensive. Feed accounts for some 50 per cent of the processing cost of chicken.
The FDA announced an update to its 1997 rules in order to strengthen existing precautions against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), popularly called Mad Cow Disease.
