Tuesday, September 11, 2007 Retail prices of chicken up By Joy Romares-Sevilla
RETAIL prices of chicken recently increased by P10, while its wholesale price went up by P2 in a monitoring conducted in one of the chicken and meat distributors in Davao City Monday.
Dominador Budiongan, an employee of Matina Meatshop--exclusive distributor of Swift chicken and other meat products, told Sun.Star Davao that the increase in the retail and wholesale prices of chicken started in the last week of August following a minimal supply of poultry.
"We sell chicken at P110 per kilo for retail while P95 for wholesale. There is lack of supply of chicken now. Before Swift Chicken delivers stocks to us four times a week, but now they supply chicken twice a week," Budiongan said, adding that the volume of chicken the meat shop gets from the supplier also decreased from more than 1,000 chicken heads to only 700.
He further said that chicken suppliers might be reserving chicken stocks for the holiday season, which is why chicken supply is limited at present.
On the other hand, Budiongan claimed that wholesale prices of chicken are expected to increase during the holidays.
"For sure wholesale prices of chicken will increase in December, based on our experience, customers used to buy in volume during those times, but possibly, retail prices will also increase," Budiongan said.
He, however, claimed that he has still no idea as to how much increase will be added to the present prices of chicken in December.
