General Manager of Chickmont Foods, Edward Albecker and Commerce Minister, Dwight Sutherland, speak on the various products available at the processor’s depot during the tour.
Whole chicken from Chickmont Foods is now vacuum sealed to reduce the usage of styrofoam, this worker explained.
Chicken glut causes cut
WITH over 600,000 kilograms of frozen chicken in stock, Chickmont
Foods Limited will be slashing its days of operation to just two per
week.
Explaining the reason behind the glut of this commodity, General
Manager of Chickmont Foods, Edward Albecker, said the processing plant
was currently working at 40 per cent of its capacity due to the
closure of many hotels and restaurants during the national shutdown
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He highlighted the delayed effect the shutdown had on the poultry
industry during a tour of the plant yesterday with Minister of
Commerce, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Dwight Sutherland.
“You cannot stop the production of poultry immediately, so while the
country shut down, we were still producing. You have different ages of
chickens on the farm and different ages of eggs in the hatchers aging.
Then sales declined to less than half as supermarkets were wary of
being shut down at a moment’s notice, so they were hesitant to buy
fresh meats cause they did not know if they were going to be stuck
with it. Barbados is a fresh chicken market, so if you cannot produce
fresh, you have to freeze it,” Albecker noted.
With the company already having laid off over 100 workers in the last
three months, the GM said the reduction in operating hours would also
have a serious impact on the staff remaining.
“We are now getting to the point where from next week, when we usually
slaughter 100,000 birds a week, we will be only slaughtering two days,
which means in addition to the 130 staff which were laid off, the
remaining 300 staff members will only work two days for maybe ten
weeks as we have to cut back our production,” he stressed, saying the
story was the same for every poultry production company in Barbados.
He therefore encouraged persons to take advantage of the specials that
were now on on frozen chicken products.
“Currently there is 600,000 kilograms of frozen chicken in stock,
which is why we are selling it at cost in the depot, because we need
to move it out,” he added. (JMB)