Poultry business seems to have surmounted the stigma of COVID-19 being transmitted through chicken and, to some extent, mutton. Meat has made a comeback on the menu in middle class and lower middle class households. From the ₹25 to ₹30 a kg in March, chicken in retail is being sold for ₹160-180 per kg now while the price of retail goat or sheep meat is between ₹600 and ₹1,000 per kg depending on the ‘tenderness’.
Demand shoots up
“There is good demand for poultry fowl at present, thanks to erosion of the stigma and simultaneous lifting of curbs on transportation of chicken feed and eggs too,” said N. Manohar Reddy, a leading poultry farmer in Adilabad. “I have begun rearing two batches now due to the demand,” he disclosed.
Ashfaq Qureshi, a chicken retailer, is dressing about 30 birds per day and double the number on Sundays at present. He used to sell meat of about 50 birds daily on weekdays before the stigma associated with COVID-19 set in. The number had fallen to just eight to 12 birds per day in February and March.
While butchers have reopened some of the shops, chicken and goats are being slaughtered mostly in private homes and being supplied to regular customers across the district. The price of goat and sheep meat, however, is in the range of the prohibitive but that does not deter non-vegetarians.
Business strategy
“The butcher calls us the day before he is slated to cut a goat and tells us the price per kilogram. If we object to the high rates, he circulates a picture of the goat to be cut to convince us about the tenderness of the meat that would be extracted from it,” a regular customer revealed of the business that has come into vogue since COVID-19 hit the market and subsequently, the lockdown.
The butchers, nevertheless, say that the market will see a bigger jump if all the restrictions relating to the lockdown are lifted. “It will ensure that all those who are scared of moving out now will throng our shops,” a butcher predicted.
