Officials of Iran’s regime say the government can no longer afford to continue providing subsidized foreign exchange for the import of red meat. This comes after the government had already cut off subsidies for many essential goods such as medicine, medical equipment, and numerous food items.
According to the Planning and Budget Organization of Iran’s regime, red meat imports will no longer be eligible for preferential exchange rates. The announcement of this policy alone has significantly driven up the price of red meat per kilogram. Meanwhile, on Sunday, May 18, Iranian online meat retailers announced, “product unavailability until further notice,” suggesting an ongoing price surge.
Sharp Rise in Food Prices in Iran; Meat and Rice Lead the Surge
On May 18, the average price of lamb and veal in Tehran stores exceeded 15 million rials (approximately $18) per kilogram. This comes as Ali-Asghar Maleki, the head of Iran’s Lamb Meat Union, had already stated that red meat has become “like a luxury and unattainable item” for the public.
It is worth noting that, at best, the minimum monthly wage for a worker with two children is around 150 million rials (approximately $181), whereas a household’s minimum living expenses are estimated to be two to three times that amount.
In September 2024, Ahmad Shaad, the secretary of the Iranian Association of Raw Animal Product Importers, citing Central Bank statistics, stated that “the per capita consumption of red meat among Iranians does not even reach one kilogram per year and stands at about 700 grams per person annually.”
However, the global average annual red meat consumption is about 8.98 kilograms per person, and in the United States, this figure reaches approximately 38 kilograms per adult per year. In a report titled “Will wage-earners’ meat consumption drop to zero?”, the regime-affiliated ILNA news agency wrote that if subsidized foreign currency for red meat is removed, eliminating the 20% share of cheaper meat that was previously imported using government rates, meat prices will skyrocket in the coming days and “this essential protein item will disappear entirely from dinner tables.”
Faramarz Tofighi, a labor rights activist, told the state-run newspaper Iran: “The reasoning is that because we don’t have dollars, we cut off subsidized currency for red meat. Because we don’t have dollars, we also cut off subsidized currency for livestock feed. This means they are playing with the lifeline of the people, and they must know that the wage-earning class no longer has the strength to shoulder the government’s mistakes any further.”
Iranian media have also refuted the claim made by Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh, the regime’s Minister of Agriculture, who said after last week’s cabinet meeting that “the price of red meat is less than 10 million rials.” Reports on meat prices dated May 17 indicate that red meat—especially lamb—is “well above 10 million rials.”
While Masoud Pezeshkian, the regime’s president, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker, have repeatedly stressed Iran’s massive budget deficit due to Western sanctions in recent months, last week Saeed Ohadi, the head of the regime’s Foundation of Martyrs, announced that “120,000 commemorative ceremonies” will be held across Iran within a week for the first anniversary of the death of former president Ebrahim Raisi. If each of the 120,000 events uses only 1 billion rials (approximately $1,205) from public funds, the total cost for Raisi’s first death anniversary will be at least 120 trillion rials—about $145 million.
