MEAT SALES IN NORTHERN CYPRUS HAVE FALLEN BY 70% IN FIVE YEARS AS BUYERS SWITCH TO BONES

Meat sales in Northern Cyprus have fallen by around 70% over the past five years: buyers are purchasing chops by the piece, while some customers are asking butchers for bones. This was reported by butcher shop owners in a survey by the YENİDÜZEN newspaper.

Butcher Azmi Erkasap says that demand falls even further in summer: “People used to barbecue every weekend, but now they do not light the grill.” According to him, buyers are going to the Republic of Cyprus for meat, where live livestock costs twice as little, and the price difference per kilogram of live weight reaches 200 lira.

His colleague Ali Onbaşı gives the following figures: five years ago, sales at his shop had fallen by 40%, while now the decline has reached 70% and is approaching 100%. The price of a kilogram of live weight has risen from 300 to 500 lira over this period, while the butcher’s cost price for a kilogram of meat is around 1,150 lira, against a selling price of approximately 1,200 lira.

Onbaşı also points to other expenses: slaughtering must be carried out at a private abattoir, costing 650 lira for small livestock and 5,000 lira for large livestock. At the same time, butchers receive no state support and pay taxes as well as a 2% withholding charge on turnover. He explains the price difference with the Republic of Cyprus by saying that animal feed there is sold by the tonne, which reduces livestock farmers’ costs.

Ahmet Kamkam, who has worked as a butcher for 40 years, describes the change in demand differently: customers ask him to cut chops by the piece — “five pieces, ten pieces” — while a barbecue for a family of four costs around 10,000 lira. Over the past year, he says, demand for bones has emerged: he used to throw them away, but now gives them out for free, while some supermarkets sell bones by weight.

Butchers attribute the rise in prices to higher fuel, electricity and water costs. Kamkam says that a tonne of water costs 70 lira, while his electricity bill for one month came to 130,000 lira, of which 50,000 lira was for his dairy farm. All three believe that livestock farmers, sellers and the state must work together to reduce meat prices.