Poultry Meat and Egg Prices to Rise by 10–15% Due to Logistics Restructuring

This was stated by Serhii Karpenko, Executive Director of the Union of Poultry Farmers of Ukraine, in a comment to Delo.ua.

He explained that strikes on distribution centres of retail chains had disrupted the food supply system, and retailers are now requiring poultry meat and egg producers to restructure their logistics and deliver products directly to supermarkets.

Due to logistics restructuring, the production cost of poultry meat and eggs may increase by 10–15%, Karpenko predicts.Producers and retailers will try to pass the additional costs on to end consumers, he noted.

«The question is whether consumers today are able to pay more for the same product, as purchasing power is only declining,» Karpenko said.

Producers are sometimes forced to reduce their margins simply to maintain consumption of their products.

«Egg prices have almost doubled over the past two weeks, and the main driver of the price increase was precisely the requirement to deliver goods to stores,» the association’s executive director said.

Seasonality will now also add to the logistics problems, the expert explained.

«However, it is quite difficult to predict how much further the retail price may increase due to the influence of other factors, especially consumers’ purchasing power. As soon as the price rises, a decline in consumption is immediately recorded,» Karpenko explained.