Minister, poultry group agree on chicken price

THE PUBLIC can soon expect to see a reduction in the price of chicken arising out of a meeting yesterday between members of the Poultry Association and Minister of Consumer Affairs, Camille Robinson-Regis. The decrease is expected to put chicken prices between $3.50 and $4.25 per pound. In an interview yesterday, marketing director of Arawak and Supermix, Robin Phillips, noted that at the meeting producers discussed various prices and arrived at a band of prices ranging from $3.50 to $4.25. However, he stated, the matter has to be taken before Cabinet, when it meets on Thursday, for final determination. “The good news is that prices are expected to go down to at least $4.25,” he said. Last week, Robinson-Regis gave poultry producers exactly one week to reduce their prices to an “acceptable level” or risk the removal of the surcharge on imported chicken.

This surcharge, which currently stands at 88 per cent, protects the local industry from being overrun by leg quarters, namely drumsticks and thigh parts, which are not popular in the United States. Without the surcharge, local producers will be unable to compete with imported chicken, which would be available at a much cheaper price. It is speculated that a removal of this surcharge could destroy the poultry industry, which employs some 10,000 persons. President of Nutrimix Feeds Ltd, Saheed Mohammed, noted that the price of chicken for the last four years was highly subsidised which resulted in a tremendous loss for producers. “We hope to break even this year,” he maintained, “and if it continues we will be able to make a little money next year and put back something for the  years we lost money. “We just couldn’t continue selling at the price we were selling at for the last four years.”

The local industry’s main competition, he stated, came from the US due to the fact that it was highly subsidised in all areas of the agricultural sector. “Additionally,” he maintained, “US producers sell a pound of breast meat for US$2 per pound, which is $12, and they sell the legs for probably $20 per pound because they make the money with the sale of chicken breast which is popular there.” “Therefore, you then have the chicken legs, which are highly subsidised and which they dump on third world countries.” When questioned as to methods of ensuring that all independent poultry depots maintain the stipulated price, Phillips stated that they had no control over the independent producers. “All we can do is ask that any price reduction be reflective of the price offered by the supplier and then passed on to the consumer,” he stated.