KARACHI: Stakeholders have increased the prices of broiler poultry products by Rs50 to Rs80 per kg, thus recovering the cost of a costly media campaign from the consumers’ pockets, market sources said.

Social media and other forums have initiated a campaign urging consumers to avoid eating broiler bird due to use of hormones and steroids during the various phases of its production. However, the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) has rejected the “negative propaganda” against broiler bird quality.

The live bird price (without liver) has surged to Rs185 per kg from Rs135 followed by the rise in its meat price to Rs260-270 from Rs190 per kg last month.

Some other dealers are charging Rs190-200 per kg for live bird as compared to Rs160, besides demanding Rs320-330 per kg for its meat (without liver) as against Rs280-290. The same dealers have fixed the rate of golden and boneless meat at Rs420 to Rs520 per kg, respectively.

Retailers did not give any solid reason to justify the price hike but some said the demand for the bird went up in the winter as against low supplies from the farms. The ongoing marriage season has further increased poultry consumption.

The PPA had claimed in its media campaign that social media propaganda against boiler bird “has no reality”. The quality of broiler poultry products is at par with international standards and even Americans and Europeans consume the same broiler products being used in Pakistan. Poultry feed in all the countries is also the same. The association said scientists had developed a breed of broiler birds, which grow up instantly and develop more meat despite taking low feed. As a result, consumers are getting cheap and protein-rich chicken meat, the PPA claimed.

This is the second media campaign of the PPA in the current year in which prices of poultry products have been increased substantially. Sources said the stakeholders raised the prices in crisis, thus giving the impression that chicken was in high demand and safe for eating otherwise lowering the price in crisis would create suspicions in the consumers’ minds.

In February, consumers had witnessed a Rs100 per kg jump in live bird and its meat price followed by around a Rs200 per kg rise in boneless meat when the PPA had recovered the cost incurred on a print media campaign, rejecting allegations levelled by the All Pakistan Solvent Extractors’ Association (APSEA) that soybean meal imported from India and other countries might not be halal.

APSEA had demanded the imposition of a regulatory import duty of 35 per cent on imports of soybean meal from India.

According to the PPA, an opposition MPA had created a “drama” during a Punjab Assembly session in February by tabling a resolution that raised doubts about the halal status of poultry because the poultry feed being imported from India and other countries was allegedly adulterated with pork meat.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2017