Chicken crunch: San Fernando businesses feel the squeeze

By lunchtime in San Fer­nan­do, chick­en is still on the menu. But be­hind the coun­ters of the city’s restau­rants and food out­lets, get­ting enough of it is be­com­ing a more com­pli­cat­ed busi­ness.

At one pop­u­lar bar­be­cue out­let, a work­er told Guardian Me­dia that the restau­rant is still get­ting enough chick­en from its reg­u­lar sup­pli­er to keep serv­ing cus­tomers. The prob­lem is what it is now cost­ing to do so. The busi­ness is spend­ing thou­sands of dol­lars more each week on chick­en, yet its cus­tomers have not been asked to pay more. Its meal prices re­main un­changed.

And if the restau­rant needs ad­di­tion­al chick­en, the su­per­mar­ket is not much help. The work­er said the quan­ti­ties avail­able at su­per­mar­kets are not suf­fi­cient to sup­port the out­let’s dai­ly op­er­a­tion, leav­ing the busi­ness de­pen­dent on its reg­u­lar com­mer­cial sup­pli­er.