7 News Belize

Chicken Run...Out?
posted (August 11, 2020)
Chicken was scarce over the weekend - interrupting many - a - Sunday - dinner menu.

It's a shortage that's been coming on for weeks now starting with scarcity of chicken parts. But it finally hit grocery stores nationwide in the last few days. This morning we found out the good news and the bad for poultry futures. Cherisse Halsall reports.

It's here! a dreaded Chicken shortage threatening 5 dollar plates and Sunday dinners everywhere. And with many spending the weekend clamoring at their grocer for the all essential national meat only to find empty coolers and scanty crates.

Armando Cowo, Manager, Belize Poultry Association
"The question is do we have a shortage? Yes. Do we have a shortage, no. And that might sound contradictory and confusing but the reality is no because we have placed 1.1. billion birds in the barn that are being harvested currently for the month of August. Yes because currently the shelves are empty, the freezers are empty and we ourselves in the industry are trying to understand this phenomenon. We think it's a bubble in the sense that ok people are not traveling, no one is going across the border to Chetumal no one is going across the border to Melchor so all that money is staying at home and it seems that the people have decided to invest that money in the consumption of chicken."

"Our managers our store managers are telling us that as soon as the chicken lands everyone is just lining up to go with them so obviously the demand is up there's a huge demand and like I said we have not been able to ascertain fair enough what percentage the tourism accounted for our sales but from what we're currently seeing, even if you forget about tourism, what we're seeing is a phenomenon that we have not seen before where the Belizean consumer now consuming a lot more chicken."

And they're consuming it from stores like Sai Bodega, where empty freezers are causing nerves to flare

Omprakash Alex, Owner, Sai Bodega
"Actually we have customers for chicken here. We can't get chicken for the past two or three weeks in container, you know, poor service and customers rail up. No chicken and they just pray that it comes out. I got chicken yesterday about 5 crate and in like half an hour I sold out. That's the problem we have."

It's a bit better over at 3 star chicken where poultry is the main product on offer but even they've been having a tough time.

Dexter Neal, Manager, 3 Star Chicken
"Some people could not believe that it had come to this, no. But I think it's a phase when we'll get out of that phase I can't say for sure. The problem is that it creates some real long lines when the truck does come in with product no and which can get a little hectic sometimes. We have to make sure we enforce the social distance and you know when people are wanting for a product that they believe or perceive is scarce they really can act up and it can create some issues. We might make sure we have adequate security to deal with any issue that might flare up when that happens."

And in an effort to avoid chicken riots the industry is scaling production back up.

Armando Cowo, Manager, Belize Poultry Association
"We have kind of missed the target with the consumer because we, there are several effects to the decisions that people make. The economy was opened back up and people went back to work. We weren't sure if people were going to spend more money on consumer goods or they were going to put up the money for another slam from COVID-19."

"We are increasing as we speak, we are increasing production and hopefully we will be able to meet the target for the Belizean consumer with the demand but as soon as that demand slackens we will then slacken production but hopefully we get some warning signs from the market before we go and incur more losses."

"One of the first signs would be the freezers in the shops not emptying at the rate we're seeing them getting empty now."

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