Turkish board starts to offer carcass meat to butchers for lower prices to ease price hikes

Turkey's Meat and Milk Board (ESK) started offering carcass meat for cheaper prices to butchers and delicatessens to ease increases in red meat prices as of March 27. 

The authority will supply a kilogram of meat to delicatessens for 20.5 Turkish Liras and 22.5 liras to butchers. VAT will be included in the base prices. 

The step, which is seen as one of the government's measures to ease increases in red meat prices, will not cover supermarkets, according to a statement on ESK's website. 

Butchers and delicatessens will be able to order 50 tons of carcass meat at most, according to the statement. 

They will sell these meats at a ceiling price, which was earlier set by the Agriculture Ministry. 

The step will likely prevent further increases in red meat prices, according to sector representatives. 

For further cuts in prices, the number of livestock needs to be boosted and the supply chain between the producer and the consumer must be simplified, they added. 

The head of Turkey's Butchers' Federation, Fazlı Yalçındağ, said there had been a baseless hike in carcass prices in the last couple of months, adding that this trend would stop with ESK's moves. 

"As prices keep rising, consumers do not buy our products. This is not good for us. With ESK's move, we believe that meat prices will go down," he said, as quoted by state-run Anadolu Agency on March 27. 

The head of the Union of Turkey's Red Meat Producers, Bülent Tunç, told daily Habertürk that people would start eating red meat for cheaper prices when the supply chain between the consumer and the producer are simplified, as "there are too many actors in the chain."