By SainabouSanneh &
Musa O Bah
It is like a nightmare, as the crate of the egg is now selling at the rate of D350, which highly becoming out of reach for ordinary people in the street and not in the favour of anyone either.
An egg is part of the protein that everyone needs in the body, and even the price of locally-produced eggs is becoming higher than imported eggs are competing.
Sounding peoples’ opinion over the hike in the price of eggs, Ebrima Bah, a shopowner highlighted the difference between local and imported eggs, saying “local eggs are from our own country where poultry farmers give supplies to us the shopkeepers. The crate of the local egg is D325 and a single is costing D10.00. The local eggs are bigger than the imported ones because at times the imported eggs are spoiled and they are mostly not fresh at once. Most of my customers go in for the local ones and then import them, so that has been the reason I sell local eggs.”
Mariama Sirrah Bah disclosed that the crate of local eggs is costly if she wants to buy a crate for D325 and resell it like the shopkeepers for D11 he will make no profit.
She said sometimes she sells both local and imported eggs but realized that there is more demand for the local egg than the imported egg. “Though some other people prefer the imported one to the local one, the majority of my clients go for the local one,” she added.
Alpha Jallow, who has a local restaurant said he preferred imported rather than local, simply because it is economical and can easily be cooked and safe. The imported eggs come from different destinations and have a better taste than the local egg. “This is my small local restaurant where different people come to buy food, others sit and eat here but what I noticed is that many who buy fried eggs go for imported eggs and it’s profitable,” he explained.
Cherno Madiwu Jallow who is also a shopkeeper noted that the issue of the high price of eggs is not convincing compared to the past years. he said there is no price control in the country, and the price of commodities gets high as always, especially on imported eggs.
According to him, the local egg is more favorable to them than the imported egg from other countries. He went on to say the reason is also that they have fewer poultry farms in the country which is another problem. “If we have more people to venture into poultry farming that will minimize the high cost of eggs in the country because both the local and imported are expensive we don’t all have the same earnings,” stated.
