Lamb prices up 20 per cent

THE LARGE supermarket chains are wooing buyers of lamb this Easter with competitive offers, but prices are still at least 20 per cent higher than last year.

The cheapest supermarket lamb is being offered by the Metro chain, which has both local and imported lamb on offer for €7.95 per kilo this year, compared to €6.45 per kilo last year – an increase of over 23 per cent.

Butchers’ Association President Kostas Livadiotis said yesterday that the retail price of both local and imported lamb is expected to be €11–12 per kilo, compared to €9–10 per kilo last year, despite the fact that the bulk of the lamb that will be consumed this Easter comes from Greece, where the wholesale price of butchered lamb is just €4–5 per kilo. This year, 40,000 lambs were imported from Greece, half of them ready-butchered.

Livadiotis was reported as saying two weeks ago: “Despite the fact that we have seen a certain fall in prices, these are still very high in relation to the sale price of lamb in other European countries. For example, in Cyprus lamb is being sold €8–9 per kilo wholesale, while abroad it is available at half the price, in other words €4–5 per kilo.”

According to Veterinary Service figures, a total of 50,000 lambs will have been slaughtered in all the governmental slaughterhouses by Good Friday. Of these, 5,000 were imported live from Bulgaria.

Finally, in the course of researching this story, the Cyprus Mail was puzzled by the reluctance of some retailers to discuss their prices over the phone, despite the fact that consumers are being bombarded with radio and TV ads shouting out the various Easter offer prices for lamb. Eventually, one in-store butcher pointed out the reason for that reluctance: Civil Defence regulations forbid it.

So if a civil emergency arises before Easter, please forget that you read about lamb prices here!

Cypriot lamb
Imported lamb
AlfaMega (all branches)
8.99
8.99 (Greek)
Carrefour (all branches)
7.99
–
E&S Nicosia
E&S Limassol
E&S Paphos
Unavailable
Unavailable
8.75
Unavailable
Unavailable
–
Metro (all branches)
7.95
7.95 (Greek)
Orphanides (all branches)
9.49
8.49 (Greek)

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.