For the past several weeks, there has been a flow of newspaper articles stressing the ever-increasing prices of poultry in local markets and supermarkets. Some notes even cite prices as high as RD$100/pound. This has kept chicken dinners off limits to low income families.
Late last week the president of the Dominican Association of Poultry Farmers announced that, in spite of the very high temperatures throughout the country, the local producers would put nearly 22 million pounds of poultry on the market in September 2024. The spokesperson noted that local poultry demand was around 47 kg per capita, one of the highest in the entire Caribbean region.
Consumption of chickens has grown by 20% in recent times, and the international prices are between 30% and 40% above local prices, costing RD$70/lb to import, which might seem less expensive, but that is just the initial cost and does not include storage, packaging, and transportation among other costs.
The association spokesperson noted the supply of poultry to local consumers has been affected by the well-known high temperatures and the rising cost of raw inputs on international markets to breed the chickens. Cooler temperatures in the last quarter of the year are also expected to help producers and bring down prices a bit.
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Diario Libre
2 September 2024