Chicken Price hike bye-bye KFC?

[visrot]

So the ITAC, the International Trade Administration Commission, wants higher tariffs on chicken imports.
This could mean a price increase at the till of 30% to 50%. Price increases will also have a dire effect on the take away industry.

Interesting discussion with David Wolpert ,chief executive of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of South Africa. LISTEN/READ HERE

What do you make of this?

 

[Cool E]

Live chicken cost R40 in most township. Most people will prefer buying it this time. With streetwise two costing almost r25.

 

[w1z4rd]

I really dont see why we need to import poultry. This is something we should be concentrating of making sustainable here.

 

[Haldex]

Cant we grow our own chickens?
Mmmmm business opportunity.

 

[visrot]

Well it sounds like the tariff increase on imports ( consisting of 10 - 12% of total supply) could cause this price increase across the board. I don't get it

 

[supersunbird]

Cant we grow our own chickens?
Mmmmm business opportunity.

We already do, only 12% is imported. The problem is we are competing against subsidised products from overseas. You can only go so cheap before you lose money.

 

[thestaggy]

I hope Chicken Licken does not import their chicken.

 

[visrot]

Cant we grow our own chickens?
Mmmmm business opportunity.

Not to derail but there do exist an opportunity in SA for farming with rabbits through a certain company who will buy all the rabbits from you. Give or take a profit of R20000/month according to them

 

[Azbubu]

Cant we grow our own chickens?
Mmmmm business opportunity.

By planting eggs?

 

[visrot]

By planting eggs?

I also found that question odd

 

[Beachless]

By planting eggs?

It sounds better than raising your own chicken :wtf:

 

[Haldex]

Not to derail but there do exist an opportunity in SA for farming with rabbits through a certain company who will buy all the rabbits from you. Give or take a profit of R20000/month according to them

Mmmm good idea.
Rabbit and quail.

By planting eggs?

No, thats for farming egg plants, we talking chickens.
Grow farm same thing.

 

[Avenue]

I also found that question odd

It was obviously tongue in cheek

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

So the ITAC, the International Trade Administration Commission, wants higher tariffs on chicken imports.
This could mean a price increase at the till of 30% to 50%. Price increases will also have a dire effect on the take away industry.

Interesting discussion with David Wolpert ,chief executive of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of South Africa. LISTEN/READ HERE

What do you make of this?

KFC does not use imported chickens.

Its only the whole frozen chickens that are imported, not the pieces.

 

[Albereth]

I think that there is a middle man scoring big bucks.

Of the various farming types I would assume that chicken farming is one of the easier sorts. Not that I can speak on industrial scale farming but with our free range chcikens we have dealt with fowl pox (mosquitoes), a genet, a hawk, and most oddly, a spider bite. Brewing beer and raising chickens work together really well too. Back to the point, chickens are easy.

If I try to think of the problem that a commercial farmer may have - well, surely his problems can be limited to disease and a slow growth rate? We don't worry about how long it takes for the chicken to get to size.

Something else that I have a bit of exposure to is dairy farming. And I pretty much extrapolate the experience that dairy farmers have to those that chicken farmers do. As a dairy farmer, unless you have land for grazing you will not make a living. Feed is too expensive. Also, a cow needs milking twice a day. You can't turn it off and the dairies know this. Think about what a litre of milk costs you in the store. I think the last increase in the milk price was almost 10% (bearing in mind that our inflation is a little over 5%). The dairy farmers got a 20c per litre decrease from Clover. As I recall they said the reason had something to do with stopping over supply. Over supply? As I've mentioned, the cow produces what the cow produces. The cow does have a means to stop production.

Basically Clover pushed down their cost and upped their income.

I am fairly sure that if there is someone screwing the farmer and the consumer in the dairy industry, there will be someone screwing the farmer and the consumer in the poultry industry.

Importing food is a little trickier than importing engine cogs. The cold chain has to be maintained. Specialised containers (reefers) are needed. Time to market matters especially with chicken - bacteria love chicken meat. Basically this limits the number of players capable of operating here. Easy peasy lemon squeezy - import chicken and subsidise your income by being paid for the brine water you've injected. Local farmer is now competing against overseas farmers where the labour is more productive. In order to survive he needs to enter into agreement with chicken middle man. And then both the consumers and the farmers will get pushed.

Note: Before some of you start asking for links and photos. I don't have any. I am not an investigative journalist. I have my own experiences, my own reading of others' works, and my own conclusions. Not saying that there is a conspiracy but there is an awful lot of greed.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Not to derail but there do exist an opportunity in SA for farming with rabbits through a certain company who will buy all the rabbits from you. Give or take a profit of R20000/month according to them

Rabbit is popular in Northern Transvaal and its been a big industry for decades. I investigated farming with Agora Rabbits in 80's (one of my many crazy ideas as a child)

 

[OrbitalDawn]

I really dont see why we need to import poultry. This is something we should be concentrating of making sustainable here.

Heard a lady on 702 who owns a grocery store this morning ranting about how awful the local poultry quality is and that importing gives her better quality products.

 

[Azbubu]

Rabbit is delicious and cheap. Not sure why it's uncommon here. Some rumour about people being afraid it's actually cat?

 

[cerebus]

You know what else there's a huge market opportunity for? Goats! Goats milk is now R25/litre and it sells out immediately as there's stock. The problem is that the lactose free alternative synthetic milks like soy or what have you have been mandated to include a certain ingredient that a lot of the lactose intolerant types actually react to. So goat's milk is one of the few natural products that are completely drinkable for the lactose intolerant (like my son).

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

I think that there is a middle man scoring big bucks.

Of the various farming types I would assume that chicken farming is one of the easier sorts. ...

Wrong

Chicken farming is more labour intensive than sheep farming, you need more feed, weather is critical, a heat wave will wipe out easily 20-30% of your chickens per day. Reason why we have chicken shortages over December / January.

You have problems disposing your waste and chickens make a lot of poop. The poop is also a health hazard so you run the risk of your staff passing out in the chicken runs.

You need an abattoir on your premises, so access to clean treated water is critical.

You need a constant buyer as you just cant keep your chickens for another 2 months while looking for a new buyer.

Very challenging industry.