Price of Belize’s favourite food rises thirteen percent
It is by far Belizean’s number one source of protein, not to mention our favourite food … but as of today, the cost of chicken is going up. According to a release from the Belize Agro-Productive Sector Group the average price of whole dressed chicken will rise twenty-two cents per pound, from one seventy-two to one ninety-four, an increase of almost thirteen percent at the wholesale level. According to Bernhard Bergen, Chairman of the Belize Poultry Association, producers can no longer hold the line in the face of the rising cost of feed.
Bernhard Bergen, Chair, Belize Poultry Assn. (Via Phone)
“The corn prices and soybean meal prices still going up and we didn’t have enough local corn, so we have to import corn and it‘s really expensive to import corn. The farmer will get the bulk of the increase, the processor will not get much, might get slightly, but the farmer will get the bulk of the increase.”
Stewart Krohn
“When the consumer gets it, how much can the consumer expect to have that price go up?”
Bernhard Bergen
“I don’t really believe it will be much more than twenty-two cents, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four, but I think the most part it’s gonna to be only twenty-two.”
Stewart Krohn
“Mr. Bergen, you are speaking about the price of chicken meat, but since you still need the same feed for chickens to lay eggs, can consumers expect that the price of eggs will also go up?”
Bernhard Bergen
“I have not considered that as much, but I really do believe that we could see an increase in eggs also because it takes the same feed to feed the layers to get those eggs, but I do expect we will get an increase in tabled eggs.”
Two producers, Quality Poultry of Spanish Lookout and Caribbean Chicken of Blue Creek, control around seventy-five percent of the local market. Bergen told News Five that all segments of the industry will work hard to keep poultry products as affordable as possible. Meanwhile, a representative of Malic’s, one of Belize City’s largest distributors, told News Five that their retail prices have gone up only twelve cents from one seventy-eight to one-ninety per pound for whole dressed chicken.
