The Hindu Business Line : Further hike in egg prices on low stocks

The National Egg Coordination Committee's Namakkal zonal committee which had kept the price unchanged at Rs 1.15 for the last two weeks has raised the egg price by five paise per unit on Thursday to Rs 1.20.

Namakkal-based egg trade sources said the low stock of eggs with the trade and major poultry farmers prompted the zonal committee raise the rate this week. Unlike in the past few weeks when the wholesalers chose to offer eggs at least two to three paise off the NECC's quoted price to get rid of stocks, this week most dealers could push the supplies at the declared wholesale rate.

This is largely on account of the very low level stocks.

The egg trade, too, expects the wholesale price of table egg to rise further over the next few weeks as the availability of fish in the market is anticipated to fall in view of the restriction being clamped against fishing along the Tamil Nadu coast for allowing breeding time.

This may encourage a marginal shift from fish to egg eating.

The sources said though there had not been any major spurt in the egg consumption, the loss of layer eggs on account of the severe heat conditions in the production belt had brought about drop in production and the drop was estimated some 20 per cent compared to the last year's production levels.