July 9, 2012

India's egg price down on buyer resistance

Faced with buyer resistance and to perk up poultry consumption, the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC), Namakkal zone, has slashed the price of an egg by INR0.13 (US$0.002) to INR3.20 (US$0.06), according to the Hindu Business Line.

The commodity hit a record INR3.33 (US$0.059) on rise in demand following the onset of South-West monsoon. From May 26-June 28, the wholesale price was raised 15 times from INR2.75-3.33 (US$0.05-0.06), an overall increase of about 20%.

Industry sources attributed the price cut to buyer resistance. "We see a lag in the off-take owing to higher prices at retail level and we don't want to pile up these perishable products. Hence, we have trimmed prices to perk up consumption," a source said.

P. Selvaraj, Zonal Chairman, NECC, Tamil Nadu, said that a host of factors such as rise in consumption, spiralling input costs, pricey vegetables, and ban on fishing in the neighbouring Kerala & Karnataka (major markets for TN's poultry trade) pushed egg prices up.

"Prices are likely to remain at the same level in the coming days to boost off-take," he added.

"Of our average production of 2.75 crore eggs, we used to send 30 lakh eggs to Kerala. It has almost doubled owing to a fishing ban in that State," said a poultry-unit owner in Namakkal.

On the export front, the industry is pinning hopes on neighbouring Bangladesh that has opened its gates to poultry imports to meet Ramadan demand. Exports plummeted to a 10-year low of 240.88 lakh eggs in May against 330.62 lakh eggs last May.

Prices of layer birds have been trimmed to INR44 (US$0.78) per kilogramme, while the Broiler Coordination Committee has slashed chicken prices to INR55 (US$0.98) per kilogramme. Broiler prices touched a record INR76 (US$1.36) per kilogramme a fortnight ago.