Bird flu keeps egg prices surging
Photograph courtesy of pexels/pixabay EGGS have Vitamin B.
The price of eggs has increased in the past two weeks, according to the Philippine Egg Board Association Wednesday.
In a television interview, association chairman Gregorio San Diego attributed the increasing egg prices to production costs, adjustments in the feed prices and bird flu.
"There is little production and the demand has increased a bit because many products are used with eggs such as leche flan, cakes so the price has increased," San Diego explained in the vernacular.
He said increased imports of vegetables and even meat items had led chicken and pork farmers to switch to egg farming because "we can't compete" with importers.
San Diego added that a producer of eggs must spend P4.41 on feed to create a single egg at the moment, even without factoring in labor costs. He said that the higher the production costs are, the price of eggs would likewise increase.
"The problem is that the cost of production is higher due to the cost of feeds," San Diego said, adding that the price for a bag of feed increased by P50 pesos.
Several poultry retailers had switched to eggs following the decline in demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
"More and more people entered the egg business so that in the last quarter of last year, the farmers started losing money," he said.