Butchers begin closing shop as consumers balk at soaring meat prices

Butchers say they are shutting up shop as the costs of supplying goods to customers have risen so high that many have stopped buying and eating red meat.

Household budgets are already strained by sky-high inflation, which has risen to its highest rate in over five years over the course of the last 12 months — a factor pushing consumers toward cheaper food options and away from costly red meat. 

Some butchers, such as Mohamed Mahmoud from Cairo, have already closed their doors, saying that customers have stopped coming. Others have even called for a strike, threatening to halt purchases from suppliers to protest the increasing costs.

With the rates suppliers are offering, said Ahmed Shalaby, a butcher from Giza’s Badrashin, butchers would have to hike the purchasing price for consumers still further, a move they fear might push customers to simply stop buying meat altogether. Around 85 percent of 6,000 low-income households participating in a November survey by the International Food Policy Research Institute on their consumption habits were already reporting reduced consumption of red meat.

And consumer prices are likely to continue to grow increasingly out of reach, industry workers predicted in conversation with Mada Masr. Red meat currently priced at LE200 per kilogram could ultimately reach LE300 in the coming period, they said.

High fodder costs for raising livestock, with imported fodder crops in scarce supply due to a year’s worth of bottlenecks at Egypt’s ports, are a major factor in the rising costs.

Hashem Abu Malek, a farmer, said that it costs more than LE13,000 per week to raise a calf, with soya and maize particularly pricey. Many farmers aren’t planning to continue raising animals once they clear their current stock, he said, so if fodder prices remain high then there’s likely to be a scarcity of red meat on the market in the coming months.

Many farms have actually already ceased to work, said Hamdy al-Tahan, a livestock trader, while other animals have died off due to a lack of available veterinary medicines, noting that the decrease in supply has acted to push prices up still further.

A live calf cost around LE60 per kilogram to buy last year, various workers said, but now costs around LE110. If butchers sell a kilo at LE200, Shalaby explained, they stand to lose around LE13,000 per animal. 

A calf, the most common type of livestock on the market, weighs around 400 kilos on average and is currently being sold for around LE62,000. A butcher loses around 40 to 45 percent of the animal’s weight upon slaughter, depending on the type of livestock, since by-products such as fat and bones are removed from the meat, though they can be sold separately. Selling the 220 kilograms or so of meat that remains after slaughter at LE200 per kilogram results in a loss for the butcher, even before labor costs are considered, said Shalaby.

Most butchers buy meat from traders, who buy livestock from weekly markets held in rural villages or from farms, and then butcher them at slaughterhouses, where butchers then purchase the meat.

Describing the situation to Mada Masr, the head of the Association of Egyptians Against Price Increases, Mahmoud al-Asklany, said that traders were selling live meat to butchers at a rate of LE150 per kilo last week but their decision to hike the supply price to LE155 last Tuesday pushed butchers to voice their concern over the dwindling demand.

The hike in live meat prices is due to a comparable hike in the cost of livestock as well as increasing transportation costs, said Hamada Essam, a trader who spoke to Mada Masr. “Everyone’s living expenses increased and livestock traders’ production costs increased, so that extra cost will be passed onto me. Factoring in that my own personal and transport costs increased as well, that extra cost will be passed onto the butcher, who’ll naturally pass that onto the consumer. There’s nothing we can do; everyone feels the pain.”

Livestock is increasingly expensive to raise due to the cost of feed, said Hashem Abu Malek, a farmer. It costs more than LE13,000 per week to raise a calf, with soya and maize being particularly pricey. Many farmers aren’t planning to continue raising animals once they clear their current stock, he said, so if fodder prices remain high then there’s likely to be a scarcity of red meat on the market in the coming months.

Inflation in production costs, particularly the cost of fodder, means that many farms have actually already ceased to work, said Hamdy al-Tahan, a livestock trader, while other animals have died off due to a lack of available veterinary medicines, noting that the decrease in supply has acted to push prices up still further.

*Writing by Ahmed Bakr