Chicken up 27 cents, eggs by 8 dollars per case

The ease that consumers received last week with the five dollar decrease in butane gas, has been cut short with an announcement that the price of both chicken and eggs has gone up. The wholesale price of whole dressed chicken increased twenty-six cents, from two-eighteen to two dollars and forty-four cents. Eggs on the other hand received a whopping eight dollar increase per case. Depending on where you shop, the new cost per dozen will be between three dollars and fifteen cents and three dollars and seventy-five cents. The new prices were announced in a press release from the Belize Poultry Association over the weekend and took effect today. Association Chairman Bernhard Bergen told News Five this afternoon that the raise was necessary and was agreed to after weeks of consultation with the government.

Bernhard Bergen, Chairman, Belize Poultry Association
“It’s an increase in almost everything of the inputs like feed and fuel and all the building materials we would get everything done. Whatever is the input, all of that increased so we had to increase on the final product as well. Of course, you would like to see low prices, but if you have farmers in business and everything you have to increase something so that the farmers and the processing plants, everybody stays in business.”

Kendra Griffith
“Are you seeing any other increases in the future?”

Bernhard Bergen
“It’s hard to say, you don’t know what the international markets are doing, but at this point in time, I don’t see in the near future an increase, but we don’t know what the international markets will do. But as it looks right now, we are not going to increase in the near future.”

This is the second time the price of chicken has increased for this year. In April, the cost jumped by twelve cents.