In the United States, the Kruger supermarket chain has limited the amount of meat that customers can buy. – Jeff Amy / AP / SIPA
Less meat, more vegetables: Americans may soon have to comply with this formula, supermarket chains restricting one after the other meat purchases, a consequence of temporary closings of slaughterhouses due to coronavirus. As of Monday, about 20 percent of the Wendy’s food chain was no longer serving burgers, according to an American analyst.
Fears of a possible shortage of meat as the traditional barbecue season approaches, have been heightened by the decision by the wholesale brand Costco to impose restrictions on the number of cuts of beef, pork and poultry that customers can buy in the face of rising demand. Each customer will now have the right to purchase a maximum of three items of meat, the company said in a statement posted on Monday on its website.
The move is “to help more people get the goods they want and need,” said the company, which operates 440 hypermarkets in the United States. Costco is not the first chain to announce such restrictions in the United States: Kroger supermarkets and the Wegmans chain have made similar announcements.
No burger at Wendy’s
As for fast food, the Wendy’s chain seems to be the hardest hit, forced to remove beef burgers from its menus in some restaurants. Wendy’s is indeed using fresh, not frozen ground steaks, which are more quickly hit by supply chain tensions.
@Wendys is this the part where I say … “Where’s the beef?” # Toosoon pic.twitter.com/cQwUz7uPTR
– Amber Olivas (@amberlyno) May 4, 2020
Wendy’s Pulls Burgers From Some Restaurants Amid Nationwide Meat Shortage https://t.co/PI1oUTSDYw pic.twitter.com/ZqHZlSqGwz
– zeroultra (@ zeroultra4) May 6, 2020
According to analyst James Ruthford, about 18% of Wendy’s’s 1,043 stores are affected, mainly in New York, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee. At this stage, it is not yet a global but regional shortage which depends on the impact of the coronavirus on suppliers.
One in two employees infected in a slaughterhouse
Donald Trump recently signed an executive order ordering factories, where cattle, hogs and poultry are slaughtered and processed, to stay open to make sure there is meat on supermarket shelves. After already closing five sites, meat giant Tyson Foods warned on Monday that further slaughterhouse closings are more than likely this year. According to American media reports, 700 workers in Perry, Iowa tested positive for Covid-19, or 58% of the workers at the slaughterhouse. As a result, many farmers have been forced to massively slaughter millions of animals to limit the population of their establishments.
It is difficult “to anticipate how long these challenges from the Covid-19 will persist,” said CEO Noel White, adding that the length of the closings currently varies from “days to weeks.” As a result, Tyson Foods’ meat production will drop significantly, especially as some workers no longer go to the factory for fear of being infected.
According to the main agricultural union in the United States, Farm Bureau, at least 18 meat factories have been closed in the last two months, reducing in passing the country’s capacity to process pork by about 20% and that 10% beef.
