KOTA KINABALU, May 26 — Traders in Sabah, in particular, those at Pasar Besar Kota Kinabalu say chicken supply is available, but the stock received from suppliers is limited at the moment.
A Bernama survey at the market found that traders could still get their supply of chickens but in smaller quantities compared to before, while whole chicken was still being sold at RM11 to RM11.50 per kg.
Chicken seller Rizal Hamid, 43, from Penampang said he would normally place an order for 300 chickens from the supplier every day, but now he could only get between 100 and 150 chickens a day.
“At present, we cannot say if supply is adequate or otherwise, it’s so-so. This is because when we make our orders (for chicken) it’s still available, but we will normally receive just half of the quantity we ordered.
“Some would ask me why the situation is like this, and I would usually say there is a problem with chicken feed, that the cost of chicken feed was too high. The weight of a whole chicken that is supposed to be sold by the supplier to the trader is between 1.8 and two kg,” he said when met by Bernama today.
Rizal said traders now closed shop as early as 9am or 10am compared to 4pm previously, because they had run out of stock.
Another trader, Yusof Kadil, 48, from Likas said supply was still available, and that the price of whole chicken remained unchanged.
“The chicken supply is still there but it’s reduced by about 30 per cent. For example, we will request the supplier to provide us 100 chickens but we will only get 60 or 70.
“As for the price of chicken, we will not hike our prices unless the supplier hikes theirs,” he said adding there was currently no limit to the number of chickens a customer could buy.
Yusof said he hoped that the supply of chicken would stabilise, as it was an important source of food and used during feasts.
On Tuesday, Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan who is also the Agriculture and Fisheries Minister, said chicken supply was adequate for people in the state.
He said Sabah was capable of producing more than 100,000 slaughtered chickens and 2.5 million chicken eggs a day, which was enough to meet the local demand. — Bernama
