‘There’s enough pork, chicken for Christmas’

MANILA, Philippines — Consumers need not worry about supplies for the holidays as producers have assured the public of enough stocks, particularly of pork and chicken.

Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines Inc. (Propork) said current farm gate price of pork has not increased, which means that supply is more than the demand.

“We have enough supply this holiday season even until the elections next year. The price of pork in the farm gate is declining as imports arrive,” Propork vice president Nicanor Briones said at a weekly forum yesterday.

Current inventory in cold storage stands at 36,000 metric tons (MT) of pork.

Price in the farm gate has dropped to P115 from P125 per kilo, which means that pork in the retail market should only be sold at P190 per kilo for kasim (shoulder) and pigue (back leg) and P210 for pork chop and liempo (belly) cuts.

But latest market monitoring showed that some retail markets are selling up to a high of P240 per kilo.

Briones added that there is enough supply of chicken and eggs in time for the holidays as farm gate prices are now below production cost.

“This means that there is an oversupply and this is still because of the imports. We have more inventory in cold storage,” he added.

A whole chicken is now priced at P120 to P160 while medium-sized eggs are priced at P4.50 to P6.50 apiece.

The better inventory this quarter is also attributed to the significant increments in local production of chicken and hogs in the last three months.

Latest data showed that chicken production in the July to September period increased four percent to 428,770 MT, while swine population improved one percent to 13.13 million heads.

Total chicken inventory was estimated at 195 million birds, up seven percent year-on-year. All three types of chicken – native, broiler and layer – posted increments during the period.

Meanwhile, total swine inventory reached 13.13 million heads, nearly one percent higher compared with the previous year’s inventory of 13.01 million.