By Heather Haddon
Wendy's Co. is limiting menu items, including its signature
fresh-beef hamburgers, at some locations as closures of
coronavirus-hit meat plants start to squeeze restaurant
supplies.
A spokeswoman for the Dublin, Ohio, chain said the company is
continuing to regularly supply its restaurants with hamburgers, but
that some menu items may be limited on a temporary basis given the
meat-supply crunch.
"We're working diligently to minimize the impact to our
customers and restaurants," she said.
Wendy's, known for its iconic "Where's the Beef?" television
commercials beginning in the 1980s, serves only fresh beef at its
5,850 U.S. locations, making it more vulnerable to supply
disruptions because it can't rely on frozen stocks that rivals such
as Burger King and McDonald's Corp. tap.
An analysis of 185 Wendy's restaurants nationwide found that up
to 10% of them had taken beef off their menus and only were serving
chicken, according to Wall Street research firm Stifel.
The beef shortages come as Covid-19 outbreaks have temporarily
closed around 20 meatpacking plants, from Pennsylvania to
Washington state, reducing the country's overall beef production
last week by 35% compared with last year's level, according to U.S.
Department of Agriculture data. President Trump last week issued an
executive order allowing meat plants to continue operating at the
discretion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, insulating
meatpackers from state and local officials' calls to close
coronavirus-hit plants. Meat production remains below normal
levels, however, with many plants still closed and others forced to
slow operations due to nervous workers staying home.
The supply problem is adding to the financial woes of
restaurants grappling with big sales losses since the coronavirus
forced dine-in closures across the country. The sales declines have
kept restaurants more insulated from the shortages that have
plagued grocery stores for weeks.
But restaurant sales are beginning to improve as some states
start to reopen businesses and some consumers seek meals outside
the home. Restaurants are now ordering more again,
food-distributors say, and some chains are having to shore up their
supply chains for meat at the same time.
McDonald's, which started putting fresh beef on its menu in 2018
to supplement its frozen patties, said it is monitoring the
situation. A McDonald's spokesman said Tuesday that fresh beef
remains on its U.S. menus.
Jose Cil, chief executive of Burger King parent-company
Restaurant Brands International Inc., said Friday that the company
is working with its suppliers to devise contingency plans if a
disruption occurs. David Gibbs, chief executive of Yum Brands Inc.,
whose brands include KFC and Taco Bell, said last week: "We are
talking about it daily."
Some Wendy's franchisees said they first started encountering
fresh beef shortages several days ago. The lapses sometimes last
several hours, owners said, and they've worked to substitute
different sizes of burgers for those they lacked. Sometimes they
have suspended offering others items that use beef, such as chili,
and they are reducing waste by preparing burgers only immediately
after they are ordered.
The company and its supply chain cooperative are putting plans
in place to respond to the shortages, and owners awaiting news of
more plans in coming days.
Many other restaurants and their distributors are seeing
shortages and higher prices for a range of meat products.
"Costs have really jumped over the last few weeks," Shake Shack
Inc. Chief Executive Randy Garutti said of beef prices Monday.
"It's something we are watching literally every hour."
In addition to fast-selling ground beef and premium cuts like
prime beef, meat suppliers are producing fewer items of boneless
pork and poultry cuts because they require workers to process them
more by hand, said Bruce Withrow, a director of meat protein in
North America at Gordon Food Service Inc., one of the biggest
food-service distributors in the U.S.
"We're hoping it's a six-to-eight-week issue. That's what we're
planning on," Mr. Withrow said.
Wood Fruitticher Foodservice, a distributor for independent
restaurants across the southeast, said it was told by its local
Tyson Foods Inc. supplier last week that ground beef orders were
canceled and customers should expect shortages. Tyson couldn't
accept new orders in its system as it tried to catch up, the
representative wrote to Fruitticher. Tyson didn't immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Ted Jones, a meat purchaser for Fruitticher, contacted a local
supplier and is having them process whatever beef they can get
their hands on. Prices for ground beef have nearly doubled from
wholesale costs at the end of March, he said. "It's wild," Mr.
Jones said.
A representative of meat processing company JBS USA Holdings
Inc. informed food-service distributor customers last week that
frozen stocks of hogs had become depleted and shortages will likely
continue amid disruptions to workers' availability. JBS didn't
immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nathan Casper, who runs Araujo's Mexican Grill in San Jose,
Calif., said his restaurants go through 150 cows worth of chuck
roll, or about 3,000 pounds every week. Last week, he called his
usual suppliers and couldn't find anyone selling.
"How do you run a taqueria without carne asada?" Mr. Casper
said. "It's 65-70% of what I sell."
After calling more than 30 meat providers, he paid $5.50 per
pound compared with the price of $2.80 per pound in February.
People had cows, but nowhere to process them. They suggested he
take the whole cow and try to sell the bits he couldn't use
himself.
Wendy's customers have noticed the disruptions.
Lisa Nichols, a 47-year-old writer, said she and a friend
recently tried to order large hamburgers from a location in
Jackson, Miss., for delivery, but was told by a DoorDash courier
that they were out. They switched to smaller patties, but Ms.
Nichols said she's since found those to be unavailable as well.
"We thought it was pretty funny and made the obvious 'Where's
the beef?' jokes to each other," Ms. Nichols said.
Lem Harsh, a 36-year-old sales director from Columbia, S.C.,
said he recently stopped at a Wendy's drive-through to find paper
notices taped over the menu stating that there were no hamburgers
due to recent beef shortages. He went to a McDonald's next door,
where burgers were available.
Mr. Harsh said he still prefers Wendy's fresh beef to the frozen
patties sold by other fast-food chains. "Eating that Big Mac
reminded me why I prefer Wendy's over other hamburgers," he
said.
--Julie Wernau and Jaewon Kang contributed to this article.
Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 05, 2020 18:26 ET (22:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
McDonalds (NYSE:MCD)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
McDonalds (NYSE:MCD)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024