KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As President Donald Trump declares meat processing plants critical to the nation's infrastructure, local butchers said shoppers don't need to fear a meat shortage.
"There's meat out there through almost any local small processing plant the USDA is not shutting down," Shannon Murdock, owner of North Oak Quality Meat Market, told 41 Action News.
Since the coronavirus outbreak began, business at Murdock's store, located 7711 North Oak Trafficway, has doubled.
"I would say it's going to be about the same price,” Murdock said, “and in the past, we’ve had a hard time being completely competitively priced against, you know, the larger box stores.”
Those stores depend on meat processed at plants around the country that have been ravaged by COVID-19 cases among plant workers.
Over the weekend, the head of Tyson Foods warned in a full-page newspaper advertisement that, because of the closures, “the food supply chain is breaking.”
The closures now are affecting suppliers.
"The local farmer is not making more money on his cattle because everybody says there's an epidemic,” Murdock said. “The cattle prices are lower now than they've been in January.”
And as Trump invokes the Defense Production Act on meat-processing facilities, grocers warn prices will jump especially if shoppers rush in and empty stores.
In the meantime, Murdock said, customers will "have to tap into the small business or the local processing plants.”
