Fresh Malaysia chicken fly off shelves in Singapore despite higher prices
Almost 4½ months after Malaysia banned the export due to a domestic shortage, the first batch of live Malaysian broiler chickens crossed the Causeway on Thursday morning, with supermarkets receiving the first batch of these chickens later on Thursday afternoon.
Broiler chickens are raised specifically for meat production and bred for optimal health and size. This is the most common type found in supermarkets and makes up the biggest portion of Singapore’s chicken imports from Malaysia. They are typically exported to Singapore at around 40 days old.
People have flocked to the wet markets and mini marts in the heartland on Friday to buy fresh entire chickens or chicken parts from Singapore’s northern neighbor, despite a 15 to 35 percent increase in prices, as compared to that before Malaysia’s ban in June. Malaysia had banned the export of its chickens in June due to a domestic shortage then.
Vincent Liow, the co-owner of Ken & Vin Fresh Poultry at Ghim Moh Road Market and Food Centre said that most of his fresh chicken stock was already running out.
The 47-year-old said: “The birds used to cost me around $4 per kg but now it’s close to $7 so I’ve had to raise my price from $6 per kg to $8. But most of the fresh chicken and the parts are already gone.”
Peter Toh, who runs a neighboring stall in Ghim Moh market, said he received only about half the 100 chickens he ordered from his supplier on Friday.
“I had people coming to buy at 4am soon after I opened my stall. Most people coming today have chosen to buy only the fresh chicken or parts,” the 52-year-old said.
A worker at the Tong Fong Fatt Hainanese Chicken Rice stall at Ghim Moh market said that it had about 60 fresh chickens for the day, and had already sold more than half their stock by 1pm.
The worker said: “These have so much more meat so it’s more profitable for us to sell these as compared to the when we only had the kampung chickens.”
With the return of fresh chickens, OK Chicken Rice’s owner Daniel Tan said he is aiming to reduce the price of his chicken rice to under $5. This was despite his franchise of eight outlets having to pay almost 50 percent per chicken as compared to before the ban.
“I’m trying to bring it back below the $5 mark so that it remains affordable,” said Tan, who had increased the price of his small and standard servings from $3.50 and $4.50 by a dollar from June.
To celebrate the return of fresh chicken imports, Tan said his franchise would be giving out free plates of chicken rice to elderly or needy customers, and those holding Blue Chas cards.
“We’ve always been doing community service as we want to make sure that those we need it the most don’t go hungry,” He said, adding that he expected to give away around 2,000 plates of chicken rice.