Turkey: New hikes in meat prices on the way

Meat prices, which have been suppressed for months with the slaughter of breeding animals, increased by 30 percent last month, while it was learned that another 20 percent hike would be made in the coming days.

While there are talks that the government will resort to imports against the rising meat prices as the month of Ramadan approaches, the annual change of prices, which increased by 30 percent in December alone, has exceeded 100 percent. The producers, on the other hand, say that the price increases are due to costs, and if there are imports, livestock farming will completely end.

Last year, import decision was taken against the rising prices towards the month of Ramadan and AKP President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “We are determined to provide cheap meat to our citizens. We said that we needed to achieve this in minced meat, cubed meat. We said that if we brought it as a carcass, we could also take these steps in carcass meat.” However, the price of meat, which was 92 TL at that time, has risen to 200 TL today.

“PRICEs HAve BEEN SUPPRESSED FOR MONTHS”

Ankara Red Meat Producers Central Union stated that meat prices had been suppressed since June 2022 and there had been an increase of 30 percent in the range. Some of the reasons for this undesired situation was as follows:

– Last year, they did not increase the producer’s price so that milk prices would not increase, and they made the producer suffer and caused the prices on the shelf to suddenly increase.
– Since the breeding animals went to slaughter at that time, there was an imbalance in supply and demand, and meat prices were suppressed in the market.
– Now this situation has stabilized and the accumulated hikes have suddenly been reflected as 30 percent.

NEW HIKES ON THE WAY

At the moment red meat cost is around 125 liras and the producer’s selling price is around 140 liras. Experts  say it cannot continue with this profit rate and add, “According to TURKSTAT, the product producer sells increased by 92 percent last year, while costs increased by 140 percent. The difference between this will be reflected in some way.”

Another expert said, “The import of carcasses or butchery causes great harm to the country. If prices are to be interfered with, breeders should be allowed to import stocker cattle.”