Vendors and consumers in Beijing expressed their concerns this week about a recent spike in China’s pork prices. A market survey shows pork consumption has declined by 30 percent since October.
“The price of pork has increased and definitely there are less people buying it and eating it. Honestly speaking, we don’t want the prices to be high. We sell more when the price is lower. If the cost is high, the profits will be low,” pork vendor Tian Huiyong said.
Zhu ZengYong, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, says current pork prices have reached historical highs in the country. The main reasons for the price hike is the African swine fever epidemic, which has quickly spread across the country, and environmental protection policies.
Mrs. Chen, a retiree, says she used to eat pork two to three times a week but now only eats the meat once a week.
Restaurants in central Beijing say they have already experiencing the effects of the price spikes, but customers say they have yet to see this reflected in the cost of their meals.
“For white-collar workers like me, the impact isn’t that great because we don’t usually go to markets to buy meat and produce and we haven’t felt like there has been an obvious adjustment or increase in the price of meat in nearby restaurants,” says Pan Quanshu, who works at a PR company.
Experts and industry insiders say that with pig populations still low, they do not expect prices to return to more “normal” levels until well into 2020.
