Live chicken sold in the interior of São Paulo went through the 20th week of 2019 (May 12th to 18th, six business days) without registering any change in the conditions registered since, practically, the first days of last February. In other words, it remained a firm market with no signs of easing, even regardless of the fact that we are now in the second half of the month.
Under this sign, it also guaranteed the preservation of the current price – R$3.60/kg, a value that, these days, will be valid for seven weeks and which, at the end of the week (18), showed a variation of 44% on the price reached a year ago when, by the way, the sector was beginning to show the first signs of emerging from the crisis that had persisted since the beginning of the year. The curious thing, in this case, is that the same increase index (+44%) is also applicable to the previous two years, as on May 18th of the 2016-2018 three-year period, live chicken was traded for R$2.50/kg.
If the economic circumstances were different, there would be room for the current stability of live chicken to be disrupted. But – it has been said and it bears repeating – although the offer remains extremely adjusted, the limiting factor of any new appreciation is the end consumer, who clearly shows that they cannot pay more than what was being recorded.
This is so true that the peak price reached by slaughtered chicken the week before last (the second of the month) did not continue this past week. In other words: even before the transition from the first to the second fortnight, product prices began to decline. They closed the week (17) falling back to values lower than those at the beginning of the month, which, in a way, already anticipates that the best moment of these first five months of 2019 may have occurred last April.
