Beef Available Soon, Mexicans Promised
MEXICO CITY — The government is promising that beef will again be available here by the beginning of next week.
“The situation is being normalized,” Hector Gordoa, spokesman for the Agriculture Department, said Friday.
He said the Executive Meat Commission, made up of several government departments and representatives of meat producers, met Thursday and reached an agreement on supply.
Residents of the capital have been without beef since the beginning of January, due to a conflict between the suppliers and the butchers. Butchers say wholesale meat has been going for more than allowed and is too expensive for them to sell at the government-controlled retail price of about $1.90 a pound.
The head of a meat brokers organization, Carlos Lopez Reyes, told the official news agency Notimex that suppliers have agreed to restock the capital with beef and abide by the official prices for the next two weeks.
After that, prices could go up another 17%, bringing the bill for the consumer to about $2.15 per pound, according to Lopez Reyes.
Beef is already out of the price range of many Mexicans.
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