As restaurants stock up, meat prices escalate

“I buy 100 kg of fresh meat daily. During weekends, my sales double. Now, with the ban on Thursday and Sunday, I am going to stock close to 300 kg. For that, I have to pay Rs 5,000 extra to rent a freezer,” he said.

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He complained that while several restaurants would be forced to stock up, they were not very happy.

“The charges are higher by Rs 20-30 per kg. Also, the taste of frozen meat differs from fresh meat,” Rashique added.

At Byculla’s Gloria restaurant, owner Abbas Suleman Kadiwal is worried about convincing his supplier to keep some stock in reserve exclusively for him.

“I call for fresh meat twice a day because my fridge capacity is less than 100 kg. Now, I am asking the supplier to store meat with him and hand it over to me when I require. He will charge extra, of course,” said Kadiwal. He orders 100 kg chicken, 15 kg mutton and 25 kg carabeef, or buffalo meat, every day. On Wednesday, he asked his supplier to double the order. “Such bans disrupt the routine cycle of supply. We get confused how much to stock. Also, if storage is not proper, the large quantities of meat we store can get spoiled,” he said.

The ban will hit not only small-scale private meat, beef and mutton shop owners, but also suppliers, locals and restaurants who will have to cough up extra money with rising demand.

According to Abdul Qayyum Shaikh, who supplies mutton and chicken across Mumbai to hotels and for shipment abroad, the prices escalated by 15-20 per cent for chicken, mutton and carabeef Wednesday. “The demand is higher than usual and the livestock that enters Mumbai is constant,” he said. The prices rose from Rs 450 to Rs 500 for mutton and Rs 150 to Rs 175-200 for meat.

Mehmood Nawaaz, mutton supplier attached with Crawford market, said ever since the ban was implemented in 1964 by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), every year the sale has seen a rise a day before the ban is observed.

“The most affected are independent shops that depend on their daily sales of livestock,” he said.

According to locals, the ban will not affect them much as hotels will continue to serve non-vegetarian dishes, and they can always stock up on frozen
meat.

tabassum.barnagarwala
@expressindia.com