Cape Town - Fast food restaurants are running out of chickens to serve because Eskom’s load shedding is forcing producers to cull millions of chicks.
A number of fast food restaurants with a national footprint have said load shedding was making it difficult to manage supplies across the country, and some, like KFC, have even been forced to temporarily close some restaurants as a result of the chicken shortages.
On Thursday, KFC South Africa, which has more than 1 000 outlets across the country, said while load shedding had recently resulted in some minor disruptions at about 7% of their restaurants, most outlets had returned to normal operating hours.
The fried chicken maker said however that there were still some exceptions and in some areas their restaurants were still closed due to power cuts imposed by Eskom.
Chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa Wandile Sihlobo said: “In red meat, poultry, piggery, wool and dairy production, there are concerns that load shedding beyond Stage 2 makes operations and planning challenging, as these industries all require continuous power for their usual activities.”
He said agribusinesses in various downstream processing activities, such as milling, bakeries, abattoirs, wine processing, packaging, and animal vaccine production, faced similar challenges.
Meanwhile, the SA Poultry Association (Sapa) issued a warning of the dire effects that Stage 6 has had on the chicken and chicken egg industry.
Sapa general manager Izaak Breytenbach said its members had to cull more than 10 million day-old chicks in the past six weeks due to escalating load shedding as the chickens had to go into chicken houses occupied by birds that had yet to be slaughtered.
There is worse to come on the food front as the annual harvest season begins.
The impact of load shedding on the agricultural sector in the Western Cape is a major concern to Premier Alan Winde, who has written to the president to warn that 181 233 hectares of permanent crops, with a replacement value of an estimated R60 billion, are under threat.
Winde warned that in some crop production, such as orchards and vineyards, product temperature was not allowed to move beyond specific tolerance levels until products were purchased by consumers.
He said discrepancies could result in the rejection of whole consignments.
“Continued disruption in electricity supply will also have a significant impact on the quality of stone and pome fruit and grape harvests and hence foreign earnings.”
Provincial ANC Agriculture spokesperson Pat Marran said he was aware of some butcheries that have closed down due to meat that have gone rotten, and butchers no longer bought in bulk which had a direct impact on livestock farmers and abattoirs.
Marran said fruit farmers were also feeling the impact because they were unable to irrigate according to their programmes.
“The government will have to consider the exemption of load shedding for the Agri-sector,” Marran said.