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No chicken feed: Carousell users jokingly offer poultry for as much as $10,000

(SCREENCAP: Carousell)
(SCREENCAP: Carousell)

SINGAPORE — Are you willing to fork out $3,000 for "rare fried chicken cutlet" or $1,500 for a photo of a plate of chicken rice? Or a mouth-watering $10,000 for a live chicken or 50 fried chicken wings coated with 24-karat gold leaves?

Enterprising users have taken to online marketplace Carousell to try their luck at quick cash and poke fun over the ongoing surge in prices of chicken and fears of its limited supply in Singapore following Malaysia's recent announcement of a ban on chicken exports.

Malaysia will stop the export of 3.6 million chickens a month from 1 June in a bid to stabilise production and domestic prices. Experts say the ban will likely further push up the prices of chicken in Singapore.

Yahoo News Singapore found more than 10 listings offering chicken products on Carousell that were uploaded over several hours on Thursday (26 Thursday). None were found on other sites such as Facebook Marketplace or eBay.

One read, "Only one rare legendary one-of-a-kind breed of chicken. Last chance to taste chicken before it becomes extinct for generations to come. A great story to boast to your children. HURRY WHILE STOCKS LAST!!!!"

Another touted two "used" "limited edition" chicken pieces sold by restaurant chain Astons for $450, claiming that "you won't get such good prices in the next few weeks".

One user posted an offer of freshly bought chicken at $80 per kg, along with a claim of being able to stock up to 500kg of poultry in a new fridge. "Lowballer will be ignored. No nego," according to the listing.

While Singapore authorities have advised consumers to consider switching to other meat products and to buy only what they need, the surge in demand for fresh chicken has sparked panic buying at several wet markets and supermarkets.

"We have experienced this before so we all know what to expect and what to do. Stay calm," NTUC Enterprise group chief executive Seah Kian Peng wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday. Supermarket chain FairPrice currently has a stockpile of four months of frozen chicken, with another two months of supply on the way.

The online site of major poultry producer Kee Song Group was intermittently unavailable from 9am to 6pm on Wednesday due to an extremely high volume of web traffic, according to a post on its Facebook page.

"Our entire company is on 24 hours' shift to hype our production volume in the coming days to meet our customers' demand," Kee Song said.

Of Singapore’s chicken imports totalling about 214,400 tonnes last year, about a third, or almost 73,000 tonnes, were from Malaysia. Almost all of the Malaysian imports were live chickens, which were slaughtered and chilled in Singapore.

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