CHICKEN egg vendors in Agdao Public Market said the culling of chickens greatly affected the prices of eggs this week.
Vendors told SunStar Davao Thursday, January 26, that their suppliers and farms simultaneously culled their chickens, which can “greatly” affect egg production. This culling process is a selective slaughtering of chickens to reduce their population, with healthy ones remaining.
Based on the price monitoring conducted by SunStar Davao on Thursday, small-sized eggs are now P6.50 per piece (pc), medium-sized P7/pc, large P7.50/pc, extra large P7.75/pc, and jumbo P8/pc.
Small sized eggs cost P196 per tray of 30 eggs, medium-size at P206/tray, large size at P213/tray, extra large at P220/tray, and jumbo at P230/tray.
Vendors said the increase in the prices of eggs per tray has increased by around P10 from last week. They admit the price increase was “beyond normal.”
“Usually if magtaas mi [og presyo] sa itlog dos or tres pesos ra na per tray then mag-rollback ra.. Karon, every other day na mi gataas pero dili ni sya sayon para sa amoa (When we increase egg prices, usually it’s just two to three pesos per tray, then we’ll implement a rollback. Now, every other day we are forced to increase but that’s not an easy thing for us to do),” Emily Ong, an egg vendor said.
“Sa baynte ka tuig kong namaligya karon pa mi nakapapresyo og ing-ani (For 20 years this is the first time that we’re pricing eggs this high,” she added.
Awing Bajenteng, another vendor, said aside from culling, one of the factors affecting egg prices is the limited supply.
“Nihit ang supply kay usa sa among mga supplier gitudlo ‘tong nadaot na egg factory sa GenSan [General Santos] (Our supplier said stocks are low because after an egg factory in GenSan had problems),” she said.
“Ang amoa ani kung unsay supply ihatag sa amoa mao ra pod among ibaligya, gamay lang mig patong sa presyo (We can only sell what we can be supplied to us but we have to increase the price a bit),” she added. ICE