‘Tun yuh han mek fashion’ is the axiom Jamaicans are now living by in light of the chicken shortage. Meat vendors and distributors have said that consumers have found various alternatives to chicken to satisfy their protein requirement.

Sales representative at Lillan Limited in Kingston told the Jamaica Observer that consumers are turning to chicken back, chicken neck and turkey neck to satisfy their need.

“If they ask for it (chicken) and we don’t have it they will say ‘alright give me the back or so’,” she said.

Turkey neck, according to the representative, is $2,700, chicken back $1,550 and chicken neck $1,400 per case.

On the North Coast seafood is the preferred meat kind, according to chief executive officer of the Nations Choice Wholesale in St Ann, Donald McDonald. He noted that there has been an increase in the amount of seafood sold since the increase in chicken demand.

“This is because there is a chicken and pork shortage,” McDonald told the Jamaica Observer.

But at the Lloyd Weise and Sons Meat Mart in Cross Roads, St Andrew, pork has become the more popular meat in light of the recent chicken shortage.

Mark Weise, manager at the organisation, said that the meat which is sold for $370 per pound at the establishment has become the consumers’ meat of choice although the chicken shortage “is not as bad anymore” and “never really affected us here (at Lloyd Weise and Sons Meat Mart)”.

This he said was because the company’s suppliers had a sufficient quantity.

The Operations Manager at the Continental Enterprise Meat and Grocery in downtown Kingston, who refused to give his name, said that mutton was the meat being purchased the most, in light of the increased demand for chicken.

He also lamented that there wasn’t really a shortage and argued that there was just an increase in demand coming from the Christmas holiday where more Jamaicans would have been expected to be cooking.

“Chicken nuh short again … who can’t find chicken can come to Continental,” he said.

Last week Minister of Agriculture Derrick Kellier signed off on an import licence agreement which will see the importation of four containers of leg quarters into Jamaica over the next five weeks.

As a means to minimise the shortage on the market the imported meat will supply an additional 244,000 pounds of chicken leg quarters to meet increased demand.

Kellier also announced that the ministry had signed an agreement with the Jamaica Broilers Group for the production of an additional 50,000 chickens per week, to come into market by the end of February.

Recently, there have been outcries from consumers and wholesalers about the inadequate supplies of chicken, and being forced to pay increased prices.

But McDonald maintained that despite the shortage, the cost for the products at the distributors’ level had not increased. He lamented that it is the wholesalers — the final vendors — who have increased their prices.

“The cost from Best Dressed and CB (Caribbean Broilers) has not really changed; I think CB increased their prices last November but not since the shortage,” McDonald told the Sunday Observer.

The minister, who stated his regret for the temporary shortage, also said it is being welcomed as an indicator of a stronger and growing economy.