SEOUL, KOREA - Just ahead of the Lunar New Year's Day holidays, top-three discount outlet store operators, including HomePlus, E-Mart, and Lotte Mart, are worried about the impact of the bird flu outbreak on their sales.

 

Already, the sales of duck and chicken meat and other related products dropped slightly and the retailers fret that their sales would decline by 20 to 30 percent if the bird flu scare lasts longer than two weeks.

 

According to E-Mart on January 20, its poultry sales for the third weekend between January 17 and 19 were reduced by 10 percent from the first weekend on January 3-5. Lotte Mart also reported that its third weekend sales of duck and chicken fell 18 percent and 33 percent, respectively, from the previous weekend. A Lotte Mart official said, "It is hard to say the decline was the direct result of avian flu yet."

 

Still it is inevitable for the retailers to take losses if the pandemic continues for the time being. An E-Mart official said, "From previous cases of bird flu, up to 30 percent of poultry sales would be cut if the disease spread across the country."

 

The first instance of bird flu was reported last week in a duck farm near Gochang, North Jeolla Province, followed by other three farms in Buan in the same province. Recently a group of wild ducks were found dead in a nearby reservoir which were confirmed to be avian flu-related.