"Its cheaper to eat meat these days" is what I heard from a chicken supplier. The Price of Kosher chicken in the east coast has been soaring recently and there is no end in sight for the prices to stabilize. Gone are the days where you pay $1.49 a pound. It has doubled and the average price of chicken per pound is close to $3. There are a few factors as to why the high costs as reported earlier, there was a shortage in production to to the closing of the Mehadrin Poultry plant which included Vineland chickens.
There is also a Kashrus issue with צומת הגידים inflammation of the tendon joint which has affected many chickens on the east cost. Many plants had to stop production for a few days since they couldn't get chickens without the צומת הגידים problem.
Meat prices are expected to go up as well due to high cost of animal feed. The pinch will be felt closer to pesach as the supply of frozen meet prior to the high feed prices will run out. Its always expensive when making yom tov but one retailer said prices are going to soar.
The price increase will be felt across the US.
So at what point to we begin to weigh the costs of raising a family against some of the chumros we have made standard in kashrus???
ReplyDeletemy father went to torah vodaas, where they only ate kosher (NOT GLATT) because r' shraga feivel said he could not justify the added expense on the yeshiva. where have the holy people who felt comfortable standing up the chumra mongerers gone. instead, we pay thru the nose to keep kosher and go further into the red each day.