Issues with meat supply chains may be affecting national fast-food franchises, but local restaurants are still going strong.
Within the last week, it has been reported that several Wendy’s restaurants across the country have stopped selling hamburgers due to supply shortages.
Local restaurants, such as Vista Drive In, have yet to experience such problems.
This can be attributed in part to the size of the long-standing burger joint.
“Some of the issues for big chains is you need lots of beef, right?,” Andy Streeter, the general manager at Vista Drive In, said. “Well, we’re one store and the people that we work with, I think, generally service smaller chains as well as a lot of independent operators like us.”
In this case, Vista’s lack of supply issues can also be attributed to the size of the meat supplier.
A beef plant in Dakota City, NE, reportedly had over 600 workers test positive for COVID-19, while a pork plant in Logansport, IN, had almost 900 workers test positive.
“The plant that our stuff is produced in is smaller,” Streeter said. “They’ve had less chance for COVID issues and I know as of last week, they tested everybody in the plant and everybody was negative.”
Despite having a relatively small impact on local restaurants, meat-supply issues are still being felt in other areas, such as price of the supplier’s product.
“My brother and I, we’ve been smoking brisket for 30 years, you know, and the brisket was about a buck, buck-and-a-half a pound,” Bud Cox, a Cox Bros. BBQ co-owner alongside his brother Bobby Cox, said. “Before this crisis hit, it was going up to (about) $3 a pound, which we thought was outrageous. But now, like I say, their talking $6 a pound and I don’t know that we, or anyone, can afford that.”
One measure they have taken at Cox Bros. BBQ to counter these issues is the practice of stockpiling meat.
A factor that has played in to which restaurants have had to cut back on beef products is whether they sell meat that has been frozen.
For decades, Wendy’s has touted “fresh, never-frozen” hamburger patties.
Competitors, such as McDonald’s, are reporting that they are not experiencing shortages.
For Cox Bros. BBQ, they hope to avoid freezing their meat, but say preserving meat through refrigeration can actually benefit the product.
“The shelf life on brisket is pretty darn long,” Bud said. “It’s cryovaced, we call it. It keeps well. It actually ages, which is a great thing, and adds flavor to the meat.”
For now, neither restaurant plans on making any changes to its menu may be looking towards a bright future.
They have both recently opened their dining rooms at limited capacity, which when paired with reportedly strong drive-thru numbers, should bode well for their futures.
