12 Things You Need to Know About Meat Shortages in the Pandemic Era

Some beef suppliers are selling retail outlets larger pieces of meat that require less processing by short-staffed plants but more cutting by store butchers. To save labor on the store side, meat might be sold in larger pieces rather than individual steaks or roasts. According to Bloomberg, “Grocers are also trying to find a way to sell so-called ‘end cuts’ from the leg or trunk that consumers may be unfamiliar with.”

According to Salon, a crisis in the commercial American fishing industry is “playing out in coastal areas from Alaska to California and the Gulf of Mexico as the coronavirus pandemic disrupts domestic and international supply chains and seafood consumption plummets.” Before the coronavirus hit, two-thirds of the seafood caught in U.S. waters went to the hotel and restaurant industries. With those markets gone, fishermen are struggling to find new retail outlets, not just for best-selling items like salmon and cod, but for such lesser-known species as dogfish and skate wings, and efficient means of distribution are not yet up and running. As with meat and poultry, there’s still plenty of seafood out there; it’s the logistics that might cause problems.