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JOHANNESBURG. – Chicken prices in South Africa are expected to up in the months to come.

Households and businesses already battling to stay afloat due to increasing living costs have been advised to brace themselves as the cost of chicken products continues to rise.

Marthinus Stander, managing director of RCL Foods’ chicken division, believes that poultry price rises may be unavoidable and that both producers and consumers will be affected by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

According to Stander, the feed accounts for roughly 70 percent of the cost of producing a chicken, with maize accounting for 60percent, soya 30 percent, and miscellaneous components accounting for 10 percent.

Breitenbach said the poultry market is under tremendous pressure from the current Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“We’ve seen a material increase in the price of maize and soya and as you know about 65-70 percent of our input costs in terms of chicken would be derived from animal feed, with the biggest component of animal feed would be maize and soya.”

“Ukraine is the net exporter of maize and soya. It is not because we are buying from Ukraine that we are having this issue. It’s because the global market for grains for maize and soya is undersupplied, we are seeing a crop much smaller than we would like to see,” said Breitenbach. – KayaBiz