The meat cases at Port Townsend’s Safeway were a bit picked-over last week, with about half of the product that’s usually available.
McDonald’s burgers are twice the price they were in February.
Costco has enacted a rule limiting shoppers to three packages of meat per person.
And restaurateurs believe the situation will deteriorate as summer edges closer.
Scores of meatpacking plants — poultry, beef and pork — throughout the United States have reported thousands of positive COVID-19 cases among their employees, reducing their ranks and in many cases last month, forcing them to close altogether.
But on April 29, President Trump ordered them back to work, saying the processors are “essential.” As meat-packing ramped up, so did COVID cases.
Mike Harbin, co-owner of Mo-Chilli BBQ and Catering, admitted he’s worried about the coming summer.
“The next two months are a tricky thing,” Harbin said. “May is always the month (processors) amp up production for summer. One-quarter of restaurants won’t be able to reopen — permanently. Then you have (the rest) trying to open, and even at 50% capacity, that’s taking supply and thinning it out in an already decimated supply. My problems are just beginning.”
“This was hard on the whole supply chain,” said Amber Bartl, manager of the Old Whiskey Mill. “Farmers markets, restaurants, farm-to-table — that whole supply chain had a big dip in it, like quicksand, a vortex in the middle of the supply chain.”
One day at a time
Bartl said she’s trying to stay ahead of new rules and orders as they are announced, all the while, not over-thinking it and going down a rabbit hole of “what ifs.”
“I think it will get tricky,” she said when asked what she anticipates when dine-in options are eased and ordering food in a timely manner becomes critical. “I’ve reached out to all the different sources I have: local, everyone we’ve bought from before; I’m doing price comparisons. We want to keep the quality, we still want to serve a nice steak, put brisket on the menu … I’m trying to be creative.”
The Old Whiskey Mill, along with Alchemy Bistro and Sirens Pub, have devised different ways to get food to people.
“We have a bartender on wheels at Alchemy, where a bartender comes out to you and sets up a mini-bar on your porch,” Bartl said. “We do pre-mixed cocktails and deliver those with full meals. We have adult holiday baskets with mini-bottles, locally based soaps, flowers. We’re collaborating with other local people to showcase other retail merchants that are struggling as well.”
“We already spaced the tables at Alchemy,” Bartl said, adding that plexiglass has been mounted between booths at Sirens. “Each (restaurant) has its own identity. We want to maintain the feel, the atmosphere of the place, and still be safe.”
‘Where’s the BEEF!’
Bartl believes meat scarcity isn’t here yet, but will be. In the meantime, demand for other items — paper bags, to-go boxes and the like — has increased.
Her cost for steaks alone have already increased $4 to $5 a pound — and the price must be passed along.
“Maybe we change the size of a steak, or its cut, or get a different price point,” she said.
Add that to lingering fear people might have thinking restaurants are opening too early and Bartl doesn’t know what to think.
“I have no idea; I can’t think that far,” she said. “It could go anywhere.”
Heather Harbin said she and her husband Mike have typically purchased their meats from one supplier, and she’s spending more time shopping at stores to find what they need.
“We’ve definitely had to shift gears to make things work,” she said. “That’s making it more difficult. We aren’t able to get a lot of our specialty meat, like pork belly burnt ends and beef ribs. Dino Ribs, we’re having a hard time getting our hands on.”
Friday, their mobile food trailer ran out of pulled pork earlier than expected — and some grocery stores are limiting the amount of meat people can buy.
“We do our main shopping with Smart Food Service, a supply store,” Mike Harbin said. “We usually buy 350 pounds of meat a week, and in the summer, it’s (up to) 2,500 pounds a month. You go in there now, and you can only buy one package of meat. One package. One festival in July last year, we went through 700 pounds, and that month, 3,000 pounds of meat.”
He’d love to buy more from local farms, but his product has a flavor customers associate with his business, he said. And the cost is too high to make it feasible for him.
“I can’t sell a $22 burger — I won’t even sell an $18 burger,” Mike said. “It’s unsustainable. And there’s flavor, quantity and quality. If you’re raised on grass-fed beef, that’s the only kind you want to eat. And I could decimate any one farm with (orders for) quantity.”
Two weeks ago, though, he got lucky.
“My supplier told me this thing is coming, and he bumped up the order for me,” Mike said. “He got me six cases. I got that six cases and he gave me a sales price. It’s a headstart on what’s to come. Now I’ll buy my limit, then buy black forest ham, bacon, other things to create different dishes. We’re a barbecue truck, but we’re also a food truck.”
Changing menus isn’t as simple as reprinting them. The health department usually charges about $100 to add items, he said.
“The health department is being very flexible,” he said. “We’re sending them the information, what we want to do, how we’re going to cook it and they’re saying, ‘go ahead.’ That’s a big deal for the health department to be that flexible.”
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
Then there’s the cost.
Grass-fed beef has gone from $5 to $8 a pound in recent weeks. The Harbins used to buy pork for $1.60 to $2 a pound; now it’s $7 to $8 a pound. Safeway’s Signature ground beef was $6.99 a pound last week.
“Prices are going up big-time, Mike said. “We just upped prices to catch up to what we’re supposed to be charging. To compensate, we’ll buy a package here, buy a package there, until we get the meat supply we need. Then? We back off our days.”
What should be the beginning of his busy summer season is now limited to Fridays and Saturdays at Port Townsend Brewing. He and Heather work the other days seeking out food.
“You have to get creative,” Mike said. “But we have a game plan.”
Some elements of that plan could mean more breakfast tacos that require less meat, or stuffed baked potatoes. Items that might have been wrapped in bacon might be sprinkled with it now.
The couple plans to add specialty meats, such as goat and duck, when they open a second venue. And their catering business is ongoing, as is feeding 20 to 30 OlyCap clients three nights a week.
THE FUZZY FUTURE
No one wanted to guess what might happen in the next few months.
“Really, it’s supply and demand, what guidelines come out,” Bartl said. “I’m willing to bet plexiglass is going to be really hard to get.
“We have hand sanitizer mounted all over — every entrance, by the bathrooms. But when that first group of restaurants (is allowed to open), if everyone starts adding (sanitizers), is that going to go back into another shortage like a couple months ago when this first hit? It’s daunting.
“Masks, gloves; the manufacturers kicked it up a notch because there’s such a need. We have those, but I think it’s going to get hard again. The front and back of the house are all wearing masks.”
Bartl knows locals are eager to support local businesses and get out of their homes after more than two months under the “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order.
“I think people still want to go out; there might be a lot of hesitation,” Bartl said. “I don’t know what’s in front of me. I can’t think that way, or I will just spin. I need to focus on maintaining what I can. Be proactive, do the safety steps and guidelines, and put them in place before we have to.
“It’s something tangible I can do now. There’s a lot of variables, but it’s coming. We’re trying to handle the issues we can attack.”
“We’re basically rethinking our model,” Mike said. “What are some other things other people won’t think of? We have a few tricks up our sleeve: smoked meatloaf. Armadillo eggs, Texas Twinkies. No one’s going to get rich on this. This will show who’s resilient and can shift gears on the fly.”
