A war of words has broken out between retail butchers and sheep traders in the Jeddah cattle market over the overnight increase in price of sheep, with the former demanding government intervention to stop the artificial increase in price of meat.

“The present rise in meat price is unjustifiable and artificial. The government should do something about it,” says Khaled Al-Husaini, a butcher who buys sheep and goats from the market for slaughter and sale in his shop in the city.

“There is no reason why price for a kilo of meat should go above SR50,” he said, and hoped it would settle down to at least SR45.

Disputing Al-Husaini’s contention, Muhammad Al-Anazi, a cattle trader at the market attributed the present price hike to shortage of imported cattle in Jeddah.




“Supply will beef up only in seasons like Haj, Eid and Ramadan,” he said, adding that the price of an Al-Najdi variety of sheep was SR1,600 while a Naeemi sheep fetched SR1,400.

He also believed that the increase in the number of wedding receptions and other family events had also pushed up the price.

Abu Nabil, another butcher in the city, said the price of sheep was being hiked unethically, forcing butchers also to increase their prices. “This is happening because of lack of proper market supervision by the authorities concerned,” he added.

Khaled Al-Daql, owner of a butcher shop chain in the city, said sheep meat price jumped by nearly 20 percent to reach SR45 per kg from SR40 per kilo till recently. He attributed the rise in the meat price to both the increased demand for meat as well as manipulations by illegal workers at the cattle market, apart from the absence of market supervision.

He said many people had urged government intervention so that meat price does not cross the SR50 per kilo mark.

Director of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s office in Jeddah, Attiyah Al-Zahrani, who admitted poor supervision on the part of the ministry, said there was a ‘terrible shortage’ of inspectors, which in turn, resulted in a fall in the number of inspection tours of meat, fish and vegetable markets.