Festival season leads to dip in meat sales

Sale of meat has come down significantly in the city with connoisseurs of food staying away from it owing to festive season. A majority of the shops selling mutton and chicken had registered at least a 40 per cent dip in sales during the recently concluded ‘Sravanamasam’ followed by the ongoing nine-day Ganesh festival.

The situation had been bleak for the past one week as only a handful of customers were visiting our shops to buy chicken and they bought it in lesser quantities, shopkeepers rued.

“We used to sell at least 20 kg of chicken on daily basis. But, after the festival season set in, the sale has come down to 10 kg,” explained Bismillah Chicken Centre proprietor Mohammed Akthar. He said that close to 250 customers used to visit the shop on Sundays. However, the situation has been changed since August first week.

He further said that several shopkeepers were hesitating to buy mutton and chicken in large quantities as there was a poor response from customers.

“We are hopeful that the sales will go up from the next week onwards as the Ganesh festival will conclude on Saturday night. Sales are likely to pick up during Dasara,” he said.

Shopkeepers also said that a majority of customers won’t prefer mutton and chicken on their platter during ‘Sravanamasam’ and Ganesh festival. They said that they were not getting orders from several eateries preparing non-vegetarian ‘biryani’ owing to the dip in customers’ patronage. Similar is the case with food joints that are selling vegetarian and non-vegetarian curries.

At present, the cost of one kg mutton is Rs.440 while the same for chicken is Rs.164 per kg and fish is sold at Rs.150 per kg, shopkeepers added.