Poultry meat prices fell about 30 per cent to Rs150-Rs160 per kg during the week that coincided with Baqra Eid.

Officials of the Pakistan Poultry Association say prices would come back to their pre-Baqra Eid level of Rs210-Rs220 per kg by the second week of November.

Poultry and fish are the two big casualties of Baqra Eid. Availability of unusually large quantities of beef and mutton after slaughtering of sacrificial animals slashes their demand during three days of Baqra Eid and up to a whole week afterwards.

“Most people have bought more of poultry meat than their usual requirement as prices are so low now. I guess their pre-Baqra Eid levels of buying won’t resume anytime after a week or so. That’s when prices may start rising again,” says an official of the Sindh chapter of PPA.

“Consumers won’t see prices climbing up again to Rs210-Rs220 per kg anytime around the second week of November.”

Karachi is the biggest market of poultry meat with daily sales in thousands of tonnes. Bulk users of poultry meat include hotels, motels, restaurants, eateries and suppliers of cooked food. Lately, some companies have been selling frozen poultry meat and its products but have so far not captured any sizable share of the total market because of their high input costs and higher prices.

PPA officials say that when prices of poultry birds or poultry meat crash, like during Baqra Eid, such companies make big buying of poultry birds in advance. The trend continues this year.

Prices of spices and vegetables remained firm during the week that ended on the last working day (October 25) ahead of Baqra Eid. But traders at Jodia Bazar pointed out that a big structural shift in dynamics of spices market has robbed them of opportunity to earn windfalls.

“Gone are the days when we used to make big money by selling large quantities of loose spices ahead of Baqra Eid,” said Sarfraz Ahmed, a supplier of loose spices to retailers. “More and more consumers are now shifting to branded spices. It has been happening for several years and wholesale traders have now experiencing the pinch of it.”

National Foods Ltd saw its net domestic sales growing by 18 per cent, from Rs1.84 billion to Rs2.17 billion the first quarter of 2012 which proves the fact that branded spices’ share is increasing in local market.

People now prefer to buy packed masala (a combination of various spices) instead of buying a dozen or so individual spices required in cooking of different food items. In addition to National Foods, other companies including Shan Food industries also sell brands of packed masala. And in sub-urban and rural areas, even less-known and unregistered companies are engaged in this business.

“Whereas producers of leading brands of masala are also importers of spices, we sell spices to small-scale manufacturers of packed masala or to semi-wholesalers and retailers,” Shakeel Ahmed, an importer-cum wholesaler of spices told Dawn. “This has reduced our volumes of sales and lowered our profits.”

Meanwhile, wholesale prices of sugar fell slightly for the second week in a row to Rs5100 per 100kg in Jodia Bazar, from Rs51.50 a week earlier. But in retail market prices ranged between Rs52-Rs56 per kg depending upon the location of shops.

Traders at Jodia Bazar said continued reports of a bumper sugarcane crop this year had led some millers to clear their stocks of last year’s sugar which dampened prices.

Whereas a row between sugarcane growers and millers continue in Punjab over the recently fixed new support price of Rs170 per 40kg, in Sindh the new support price is now expected to be fixed immediately after Baqra Eid holidays or “anytime during the first week of November,” according to an official of the provincial agricultural department.

Commodity traders say they are expecting arrival of new Irri-6, Irri-9 and their hybrid varieties to begin from November as in parts of Sindh harvesting of non-Basmati has started. “Actually, a few truckloads of new rice had become last week but because of engagement of commercial vehicles in transportation of sacrificial animals we didn’t see more trucks coming in,” said Mohammad Javed, a rice dealer.

Prices of non-Basmati rice this year are likely to remain stable as Sindh is poised to produce at least 0.3 million tonnes of more of non-Basmati varieties, according to a physical survey of rice fields recently conducted by Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan.

REAP Chairman Javed Ali Ghori believes that overall production of rice too would not be less than 6.5 million tonnes this year, slightly up from the last year. He says that REAP survey has exposed the misgivings about any sizable damage to rice crop in the country, except for in Jacabobad district of Sindh.

Prices of Irri-6 rice of various qualities ranged between Rs38-Rs45 per 100kg in Jodia Bazar. Traders said that prices of wheat remained stable around Rs3100-Rs3150 per 100kg showing no big change over the last week.

They said that in the pulses group, gram pulse showed a moderate increase of Rs1-2 per kg possibly because of its higher off-take ahead of Baqra Eid. Information obtained from traders at Akbari Mandi of Lahore also did not indicate any big change in prices of commodities.

“Prices of Basmati rice that had shown some increase in the last two weeks remained uppish at Rs11000-Rs11500 per 100kg because stocks of Basmati rice of last year is depleting and there are reports that arrival of new rice would be delayed,” Shahzad Ahmed, a dealer told Dawn over telephone.

Traders at Jodia Bazar said though prices of tea remained stable during the week ending on October 25, they feared an increase in coming weeks with the arrival of winter and also because of an upward trend in international markets.—Mohiuddin Aazim