Demand for safe chicken surges at supermarkets

Distributors of poultry meat said on Wednesday that the demand for safe and hygienic chicken had increased suddenly since early this month, by as much as 50% from last month.

Vo Thi Ngoc Dieu, head of frozen food for Cong Hoa Maximart supermarket in HCMC’s Tan Binh District, said the poultry-meat sales at her supermarket had increased by nearly 50% from last month. The prices of chicken produced by leading poultry processors like CP, Phu An Sinh and Binh Minh are stable at around VND56,000 per kg, Dieu said.

“Lately, our supermarket has to take over 120 kg of safe and hygienic chicken a day from the producers to meet much higher demand. The demand for the chicken is far beyond supply, particularly in the case of chicken wings,” Dieu told the Daily on Wednesday.

Chicken wings had gone up to VND84,000 per kg compared with VND60,000 last month.

Similarly, the price of eggs at the supermarkets had gone from VND18,000 to VND21,000 for ten.

Meanwhile, more and more poultry is being imported to Vietnam, because of the demand in the local market.

Nguyen Thuy Hoa, head of the food processing office of the Hanoi-based Vietnam National Foreign Trade Forwarding and Warehousing Corporation (Vietrans), said the corporation was accelerating the imports of chicken from Korea to meet higher demand.

At the moment, Hoa said Vietrans was importing about 600 tons of chicken a month, produce of Singreen Company of Korea, to distribute to most supermarkets and trade centers in the central and northern provinces.

Vietrans has been a distributor of chicken for Singreen since late April.

“Because of higher demand for Singreen chicken on the local market, an estimated increase of over 50%, we have asked the Korean supplier to increase the supply for us,” she said on the phone on Wednesday.

According to Vietrans, Singreen’s chicken has been tested and approved for hygiene and origin. Singreen chicken on the local market is cheaper than the chicken produced by domestic companies.

Vietrans is the distributor for about 80% of poultry meat for the central provinces and north.

SGT

Tags: safe chicken, Vietnam food industry