Poultry Restaurants’ Biggest Nightmare: NO MEAT
Nando’s ran out of chicken. This is not a drill. The chicken-based restaurant is chicken-less. But is it only chicken that they’re missing?
How could the restaurant that prides on its signature peri-peri chicken not have enough chicken to put on people’s plates? In the UK, Nando’s announced the temporary closure of nearly 50 stores across the country two weeks ago. This happened as UK faced disruptions in the supply chain stemming from both the Brexit and the COVID-19 Pandemic.
On January 1st, 2021, Brexit took place and UK immediately lost access to majority of the E.U. workers. Taking the transportation as an example, UK has faced a sudden and large shortage in truck drivers. Britain’s Road Haulage Association estimates a loss of about 20,000 E.U. workers since Brexit took place. Such reasons led the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association to conclude that the current disruption of food supply is not a surprise. And this would have been enough struggle for the UK, but the Pandemic raged on.
Nations have faced disruption of supply chain worldwide due to the pandemic. UK was not an exception, and their supply chain issue was complicated even further. On top of it, UK experienced a shortage of labour due to the Pingdemic. Pingdemic is a new term that describes the widespread isolation notified by a ‘ping’ from the British app that tracks recent exposure to the virus. Nando’s explained that they were also facing a shortage of staff as many were ‘pinged’ to serve self-isolation periods. This double lack of supply has clearly taken a toll on Nando’s and forced them to shut down temporarily.
Some may criticise Nando’s for their lack of planning ahead. After all, experts were already predicting such shortages happening in the near future. However, from the perspective of Nando’s, it would be both costly and inefficient for them to stock up huge amounts of chicken or over-hire staff in advance. And it is not only Nando’s that is suffering; a lot of businesses in other industries such as gaming are also experiencing difficulties due to the disruption in the supply chain.
Currently, Nando’s re-opened a few of their stores in the UK.