Three branches of the popular Barbadian restaurant Chicken Barn did not open on Monday.
Management made the announcement via social media that the outlets at Black Rock and Bay Street in St Michael, as well as that at Coverley, Christ Church, were closed “due to lack of chickens available on island”.
As reported in Monday’s Daily Nation, both Chicken Barn and KFC Barbados were experiencing difficulty in sourcing fresh chicken from their suppliers and said they would be forced to consider closing some branches if the situation did not improve.
There was no immediate indication that any of the KFC outlets in Barbados were affected.
“All of my suppliers are finding it hard to supply. My main product is chicken so if this continues it would impact business significantly,” Chicken Barn co-director Peter Hynam told Nation News in the article.
He hoped those who were killing on Monday would be able to supply them, adding orders varied throughout the year, but they generally requested between 1 400 to 2 000 birds weekly.
A representative from KFC said they were experiencing shortages for about ten days and it worsened over the weekend. They were unsure about the rest of the week after working “some magic” to keep all the locations open on Monday.
“We are an international brand and we can only get chicken from suppliers that are approved and we are waiting on the supplier,” said operations business partner Shekelia Barrow.
On Monday, president of the Barbados Agricultural Society, James Paul, was a guest on Starcom Network’s Down To Brass Tacks. He told moderator David Ellis not all of the fast food restaurants were experiencing the same problem and said it was time some revisited how they ordered.
Meanwhile, Barry Gale of Gale’s Hatcheries, the major supplier of chicks, said earlier in the year some of their customers began cancelling orders and they scaled back production.
Speaking on the same radio programme, he said demand increased recently, but customers had to give them some time, at least five weeks, to be able to fill orders, and they had to balance that and supply all of their clients. (SAT)
