Is the meat in New Zealand too expensive? We checked the prices!

PicodiAugust 29, 2023

Meat, which is a source of protein, fats and vitamins, is an important part of the diet for many people – an average Kiwi consumes 86 kg of meat annually^[1] or about 7.2 kg monthly. However, isn’t meat in New Zealand too expensive?

We decided to compare the prices of 1 kg of chicken fillet around the continent.

Why chicken?

Poultry is the most commonly eaten meat^[2];
Chicken is white meat, which is easier to digest and healthier.

Price of meat in APAC

Our ranking consists of 23 APAC countries. It turns out that the continental average price of 1 kg of chicken fillet is $5.11.

The cheapest chicken meat can be found in Pakistan (NZ$2.41/kg), Bangladesh (NZ$2.57/kg) and Thailand (NZ$2.59/kg). On the other hand, citizens of Singapore (NZ$16.00/kg), Hong Kong (NZ$15.07/kg) and New Zealand (NZ$15.01/kg), have to pay the highest prices for their poultry.

In the chicken price ranking, New Zealand ranked as the 21^st country out of 23 countries included – in July 2023, the average price of 1 kg of chicken was NZ$15.01 ($9.33), over the APAC average.

Comparison of meat prices with wages

In order to make the comparison more fair, we calculated how many kilograms of chicken can be bought with the average wage in each country.

The best relation between meat prices and wages can be found in Singapore, where the average wage can get you 506 kg of chicken breast. Much less fits in the Australian (403 kg) and Japanese (360 kg) average wage.

The average Kiwi wage gets you 318 kg of chicken. This is more than in countries such as South Korea (283 kg), China (266 kg) and Thailand (214 kg).

Click to see the entire ranking

No.	Country	Number of kilograms of chicken that can be bought with the average salary
1.	Singapore	506 kg
2.	Australia	403 kg
3.	Japan	360 kg
4.	Hong Kong	323 kg
5.	New Zealand	318 kg
6.	South Korea	283 kg
7.	China	266 kg
8.	Thailand	214 kg
9.	Malaysia	204 kg
10.	Taiwan	202 kg
11.	India	186 kg
12.	Iraq	142 kg
13.	Vietnam	120 kg
14.	Bangladesh	99 kg
15.	Indonesia	97 kg
16.	Iran	94 kg
17.	Uzbekistan	93 kg
18.	Philippines	76 kg
19.	Cambodia	68 kg
20.	Nepal	68 kg
21.	Pakistan	66 kg
22.	Kyrgyzstan	62 kg
23.	Sri Lanka	41 kg

Prices in Kiwi online supermarkets

Methodology and sources

Prices of 1 kg of chicken breast, as well as the average wages in different APAC countries, are from numbeo.com, a platform where hundreds of thousands of users from around the world monitor prices of products and services. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate data from Google Finance for July 2023. Prices in Kiwi online supermarkets as of 02.08.2023.