World meat industry news

Russian sausage manufacturers were forced to revise recipes and add pork instead of the usual chicken meat to their products. Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes about this with reference to the head of the National Union of Meat Processors (NSM) Yulia Panferova.

She named the reasons for disruptions in the supply of chicken meat, and, as a result, its shortage and rise in price. According to the expert, the chicken goes, first of all, to retail chains, and it goes to processors "on a residual basis." This amounts to very small volumes. Because of this, purchase prices have already risen to 190 rubles per kg, which is 25 rubles higher than the average retail prices. This is also confirmed by the data of a joint study by Rosselkhozbank and NTech, which the newspaper also cites. It compared the cost of both types of meat. According to him, for the first full week of this month, selling prices for a broiler carcass increased to 175 rubles per kilogram, which is 24% more than the same period last year and two - last week. At the same time, pork in live weight rose to 127 (by eight and one percent, respectively).

Panferova named several possible reasons for the increase in the price of chicken. The first is the sharp prevalence of domestic demand for this meat over production volumes. This greatly increased its consumption. In turn, this situation has developed due to the high availability of poultry meat, which used to make it the cheapest, and now has played a “cruel joke”. Demand also increased due to the seasonal factor. Other factors were the limitation of supplies from Belarus and the closure of the Kazakh market for these products.

However, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture called the situation not critical. The ministry said that over the year, chicken has risen in price by only six percent, and this price increase is seasonal. They also noted that, in general, the price situation in the food market is stable, and the rise in price of most positions does not exceed the growth of inflation. According to the agency, in the five months of this year, poultry production increased by almost two percent from the same period last year, to 2.7 million. The indicator for the production of livestock and poultry for slaughter (by 3.6 percent to 5.4 million tons) and eggs (by four percent to 16 billion pieces) also increased. At the same time, the department acknowledged that due to the current situation in the poultry meat market, many regions began to reduce production.