Egg prices soar 33 pc since July

Your omelette just got pricier. Prices of eggs have spurted more than 33 per cent since the last week of July and are slated to go up further by about 10 per cent in the near future, according to National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC).

“The price is Rs 360 per 100 eggs today (Monday) and we expect it go up further once the Ganesh festival is over,” Zonal Chairman of NECC, Karnataka, B R Sainath told Deccan Herald.

He attributed the spurt to a phenomenal jump in soyameal and maize prices, the two key feed ingredients, apart from high electricity tariff and labour costs, leaving poultry farmers to operate on “wafer thin margins” of 15 to 20 paise per egg. Prices hovered at around Rs 270 in the first week of August and have been on an upward march since then.

The NECC pointed out that between June and August, prices of soyameal have more than doubled from about Rs 20,000 per tonne to Rs 45,000, while that of maize has gone up from about Rs 1,000 per quintal to Rs 1,600 per quintal. Bangalore consumes about 45 lakh eggs every day, with about 10 lakh coming in from Namakkal in Tamil Nadu and the rest from suburban Bangalore, Davangere and Hospet.