The country’s increasing international trade in food and other agricultural products, known as agri-food trade trends, is crucial for food security among households. As wealth increases in the country, PNG is dealing with both high child stunting rates and a growing obesity epidemic, a situation known as dietary change and obesity. The demand for ultra-processed, sugar-sweetened beverages and food has increased substantially over time in PNG, indicating an increase in consumption of these items.

Please note that these trends can vary by region and other factors.

As for the issue of falling prices of sheep and cattle at the saleyard but rising retail meat prices, this can be explained by the concept of “sticky prices” in economics. This means that retail prices sometimes take time to adjust to price changes at earlier stages of the supply chain, such as the prices being paid to the farmer. This delay can be due to various costs and challenges at each link in the supply chain, such as transportation costs, labor costs, or storage fees. If these costs don’t fall, the retail price is unlikely to decrease. Additionally, many parts of the supply chain are hidden from view, making it difficult to adjust prices. For example, if you’re a coffee shop owner and the price of raw coffee beans falls, you might want to lower the price of your lattes. However, if the costs at other stages in the supply chain don’t fall, the price of your latte is unlikely to change. This is how a sticky price is born. There may be other reasons why retail prices can be stubborn to change. For instance, as a restaurant owner, changing every price on a menu each day in response to changing input costs can be challenging. Restaurants often keep their prices steady for a while, even when the cost of ingredients changes. This is because changing prices too often can confuse and frustrate customers. This idea is known as “sticky prices”.

Restaurants also have to consider what their competitors are doing. If other restaurants aren’t changing their prices, they might decide to wait and see what happens. This is called a “coordination problem”. Plus, sometimes restaurants have agreements with their suppliers that set prices for a certain amount of time.

Now, imagine a situation where prices are starting to go down, which is called deflation. In this case, those sticky prices can be slow to fall, like a nervous kid at the top of a bungee jump.

The situation gets more complicated when the supply chain – the process of getting ingredients from the farm to the restaurant – is unclear. Some people in the supply chain might decide to keep prices high and make more profit for themselves. This can slow down price reductions even more.

For example, let’s look at the current prices of red meat. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown that retail prices for lamb and beef are starting to go down, by 1.2% and 0.9% respectively. This is happening after many months of falling prices for livestock at the saleyard (where animals are sold).

However, these retail prices aren’t falling as much as the saleyard prices. Over the past five years, the average cost of beef in the supermarket has gone up by nearly 40%, and lamb prices have grown by around 25%. At the same time, the price of cattle at the saleyard has nearly doubled. Lamb prices reached their highest point in late 2021, showing a 40% increase from three years earlier.

But now, cattle and lamb prices at saleyards have gone back to their 2018 levels. So, does this mean we can expect supermarket prices for red meat to go back to their 2018 levels too? In short, no. Because of rising costs related to labor, energy, and transportation in the processing and retail sectors, it’s unlikely that retail prices for red meat will drop significantly. In other words, those sticky prices are likely to stay stuck.