Christopher Levy, senior vice–president of poultry operations at the Jamaica Broilers Group, producers of the Best Dressed Chicken, said as much as five per cent could be added to chicken prices by month–end. Chicken prices were last increased in December. Best Dressed Chicken is imported and sold in the Cayman Islands.

"We are almost having to move our prices on a per shipment basis," Mr. Levy revealed during a media tour of the company’s processing facilities in St. Catherine recently.

He explained that corn prices have risen over 100 per cent in a year "and that is going to have a direct cost on the poultry industry and any other industry that uses corn, including the ethanol industry." The high corn prices are being driven primarily by the increasing demand for corn in the production of ethanol in the United States. Jamaica imports about 300,000 tonnes of corn annually to manufacture animal feed.

Source: cayCompass.com