Consumers Complain About The Cost Of Meat. What Does The Butcher Have To Say?

As the new year is being introduced, Consumers complain about the cost of meat when the season demands meat and food for celebrations. People can’t do without meat for the basic reason that most local foods in Ghana require the use of meat in preparation aside from the fact that it is a great source of protein.

Meat in Accra is expensive enough to double the cost of food ingredients needed to prepare a simple meal. Venturing into the Ashaiman meat market to discuss the issue with some butchers revealed some reasons why consumers complain a lot about the cost of meat in Ghana.

Alhassan Nurudeen is one of the butchers in the meat market to speak about the cost of meat in Ghana. According to Alhassan, Ghanaians do not like farming so most of their meat is being imported from Benin and Burkina Faso. He explains that, when meat is bought from Burkina Faso using CFA, they have to make sure that it is being sold in cedis to arrive at a total amount of their capital and profits when converted to the CFA.

Alhassan further emphasized this by stating that; “getting meat from local cows in the country will only serve us for two days before we get a shortage of cattle in the country.” This paints a picture of the type of economy Ghana portrays and how it affects agriculture.

Abdullah, who is also into the meat business, laments how imported meat from Burkina Faso, coupled with the price of transport to bring the meat to the local markets to be purchased by consumers makes meat expensive. According to Abdullah, the price of meat has not changed and it’s still the same due to the reason that price is determined by the CFA.

Issahaku Alhassan has been a butcher with his brother Nurudeen for many years, and he discloses that meat is not as expensive as local food vendors make it seem. He explains that he cuts meat for sellers at three cedis and four cedis but the average cost of meat at the food market is sold for seven cedis. This is the main reason why we have consumers complaining.

Information from all the various butchers concludes that meat prices would not change whether there is a depreciation or appreciation of the dollar to cedis for the basic reason that the price of meat is dependent on other factors such as imports, transport, and the value of the CFA.