Brazil poultry prices to remain moderate due to oversupply
Average price for fresh, frozen chicken at US$1.37/kg
20 November 2024
2 minute read
By: The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service post in Brazil forecasts poultry prices will be moderate in the remainder of 2024 and in 2025 due to high supply, according to a recent US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report.
The forecast is based on overall decreased input costs – such as sanitary, electricity, and transportation costs, domestic inflation, and external demand. The average price per kilogram of chilled chicken meat in the period of January to September, 2024 was R$7.21 (US$1.37), and frozen chicken was sold at an average price of R$7.21 (US$1.37). In comparison, the average prices in the same period in the previous year was close to nine percent lower.
The following graph shows the average monthly prices for chilled and frozen chicken since January 2020.The graph demonstrates a recovery in prices, which was intentional as production decreased to force an adjustment in prices paid to the producers.
In 2024, producers adjusted production levels, and therefore, their profitability was corrected up. Given the short lifecycle of chickens, producers are more able to balance demand and production levels more quickly than other animal protein producers – such as cattle and swine, whose lifecycles are much longer than that of chickens.
The state of Paraná serves as a national reference for poultry costs, due to the size of its operations. The table below shows that Paraná producers saw the lowest production costs in the past four years reaching levels below 2021, when production was a record.
In 2024, production costs ranged from R$4.28 (per US$0.81) to R$4.61 (per US$0.88), and in the first five months of 2024 were lower than in the same period in 2023. Post estimates production costs will remain within the current levels until the end of the year. For 2025, Post forecasts production costs to stay relatively stable from 2024, as improvements are forecasted in the corn and soybean crops.
