Egg prices up

The price of egg is set to rise from today.

A letter from Barbados’ largest egg supplier, Chickmont, dated November 21, and signed by Trevor Gunby, Chickmont’s egg farm operations manager, outlined the reason for the increase, which the company said would be temporary.

“Due to a shortage of eggs created by our competitors, we have had to import [one] million eggs to satisfy local demand from now until December 31, 2024. The price of [the] imported eggs has landed here at 80 cents per egg. We have therefore had to make the decision to do a blended increase of [eight] cents per egg on your present price from the time mentioned. Unfortunately, this is the only solution we have for you, our valued customers.”

When contacted, chief executive officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) James Paul said they were aware of the pending increase and while it was necessary at this time, he hoped it would be a one-off action and would not set a precedent.

“Because of the fact that right now, yes, we’ve seen a situation where egg stocks, egg inventories have dropped this year. COVID has caused a lot of people to come out of the industry and even the price compact itself did not address a lot of the concerns of the smaller producers.

“So, it meant that for some time now, we do know that egg production has not been where it should be. Some of our major stakeholders have not been producing at the level that they should be. So we supported the importation, at least at this point, in order to avoid any shortage of eggs. However, I want to note that we are seeing an increase in the placements of eggs and we are hoping that egg production should now start to increase by next year,” he said.

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