Transportation playing a big role in rise of meat prices

Compare that to last year when a whole chicken started at $6.47. It rose by 13% in April 2020 to $7.32. But it’s not just chicken that’s seeing a rise.

“Pork. Pork right now is jumping up pretty high and we haven’t seen that much in the past few years.” Bill Sword, Manager of Homesteader Meats.

Sword says that he gets his meat from the lower mainland and Vanderhoof, but the increase demand from customers and restaurants has made it difficult to fill orders.

“With the restaurants just starting to open up again, restaurants normally buy in the winter time when prices are low and they stock up their freezers, but now they’re buying up now because they haven’t had all stock supplied up.” said Sword.

But demand isn’t the only one to blame with the rise of prices. The BC Cattlemen’s Association says there’s a variety of factors that are driving up costs.

“Covid has certainly had an impact on it. But we’re seeing other factors in there. We’ve seen feed and grain that we feed our cattle go up quite significantly. China has taken our feed grain right now which is driving up our prices.” said Kevin Boon, GM of BC Cattlemen’s Association.

But the biggest factor in meat prices right now is the cost of transportation.

“We’ve seen an increase in our fuel costs due to carbon tax. While a lot time we get focused on carbon tax is what we pay when we’re filling our vehicles and stuff. That’s where we think it ends, but when we start talking about the transportation and the semi and the product to the supermarket, that all adds up.” said Boon.

But even with suppliers close to here in the north, some of our meat products still come from out of province because the cost is cheaper. There is a slaughterhouse located in Kamloops, and Boon says they are planning to have one here in Prince George in the future.

“When we did the feasibility, viability studies on it, Prince George just seemed the right place to do it and it still very much is in centralization.” said Boon.

Boon says he’s unclear when prices could stabilize because it’s all dependant on how we recover post pandemic.

by Oli Herrera

Transportation playing a big role in rise of meat prices

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