Wholesale price of eggs hits a record high in Tamil Nadu – Times of India

NAMAKKAL: Wholesale price of eggs has hit a record high of Rs 5.25 per piece in Namakkal, resulting in a sharp spike of retail prices. Customers were shelling out anywhere between Rs 7 and Rs 8 per egg in retail markets on Sunday. If egg prices continue to remain high, hotels and bakeries are also expected to spike prices of egg-based products.
According to National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC), the price fixation body for eggs in Namakkal, wholesale price of eggs was Rs 4.10 per piece on September 1 which rose steadily through the month. On last Friday, the price was Rs 5.05 which rose on Saturday after NECC added 20 paise to the base price.
An official said that the last time eggs touched an all time high was in November 2017 when the price was fixed at Rs 5.16 per piece. President of Tamil Nadu Poultry Farmers Marketing Society ‘Vangili’ Subramaniam said that poultry farmers reduced the number of egg-laying birds due to poor demand in April and May owing to Covid. “Hatchery owners reduced the number of birds too as they suffered loss,” he said. M Kandasamy, a poultry farmer, said that in April the wholesale price of an egg went below ?1.50 per piece when the farmers were forced to set up makeshift shops along the roadside and sell them at low prices. To minimise losses, poultry farmers brought down the egg production from four crore pieces per day to three crore. They are yet to scale up production while the demand has grown over the past few weeks.
While the wholesale price of one egg is Rs 5.5 in Chennai, the retail price was ?6.5 in neighbourhood shops and Rs8 in supermarkets. On an average, Chennai and suburbs , consume 60 lakh eggs everyday, according to NECC officials. However, the consumption has dropped by 15% due to the Tamil month of ‘Puratasi’, when many prefer vegetarian food. “The current prices are higher than we have ever come across,” said Rajendran, a trader in Chennai, adding that the prices would not decrease till February as there was a huge shortage of eggs across the country.
Elsewhere in the state too, the retail price of eggs was anywhere between ?7 and ?8 per piece. President of the Madurai Egg Wholesale Dealers Association, D Selvaraj, said that even now demand for eggs in TN was low, but price rise was due to demand in other parts of India. He said that the culling of the birds had led to a shortfall in the egg production in Andhra Pradesh which is a major distributor in the country.