Cairo: Dubbed the feast of meat in Egypt, this year's Eid Al Adha is failing to live up to expectations as beef products are proving unaffordable to many Egyptians.
Discouraged by "unjustified" increases in meat prices and economic woes, many Egyptians have decided to cut down on their beef shopping for this Eid, also known as the feast of sacrifice.
"In the past we used to save money to buy a goat or a ram and have it slaughtered to distribute parts of the meat to the poor and relatives and keep the rest for us," said Mona Al Shazli, a housewife. "This year, due to the high prices of cattle at the local market, we cannot afford this tradition. Sheep sell for 1,500 Egyptian pounds (Dh923) to 2,000 pounds per head, an increase by 30 per cent compared to last year. So we decided to buy some meat and distribute it to the poor instead," she said.
"My children eagerly await Eid Al Adha to eat a lot of meat offered to us as gifts by our friends," said a government employee, who gave his name only as Abu Ihab. "With the cost of living constantly soaring in Egypt, how can a civil servant like me feed his children and afford other life essentials with 550 pounds per month? Our annual joy is stolen this year by greedy butchers who have hiked up the prices of meat in the absence of monitoring from the government," said the father of three.
Frozen imports
"This is unfair," said Eisa Mahmoud, a butcher in northern Cairo. "The meat market is stagnant, compared to previous years. The prices are almost the same. The real problem lies with the drop in the people's incomes due to the bad economic situation," he said.
Many consumers have shifted to frozen beef imported mainly from Brazil, according to local newspapers.
40% below poverty line
In predominantly Muslim Egypt, 40 per cent of the 80 million population is believed to live below the poverty line. For people who cannot have meat on the dining table for the rest of the year, Eid Al Adha is traditionally the time to eat the rare commodity.
Egypt's economy has been hard hit by a series of labour strikes for better wages over the past nine months. A perceived weakness of the interim government has emboldened retailers, including butchers, to increase prices unjustifiably, according to the public.
