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Bahrain hit by shortage of chicken

Manama, June 12, 2011

Bahrain has been hit by a shortage of fresh chicken meat.

Shelves in some stores have been virtually bare for up to two weeks as one of the country's major suppliers in Saudi Arabia closed down its plant for maintenance.

But the Supreme Foods Company, which supplies 15,000kg of Tanmia Fresh Chicken a day, said operations would be up and running before the end of the week.

Company manager Sanjay Mehrotra told our sister newspaper Gulf Daily News (GDN) the supplies would be available in the market from Thursday.

'The reason we are not getting fresh chicken is because our factory has been closed for the past month as we are upgrading the machines and facilities,' he said.

'The inventory, including raw materials, needs to be cleaned and upgraded as we slaughter half a million birds per day.

'This is a normal and annual process which takes about four to five weeks.

'Our clients, who are dealing with us for the past several years know about it and even the general public know the reason for the shortage.'

Mehrotra denied a report in another English-language newspaper that there had been a transportation problem, saying he had been misquoted.

'Our plant was closed and we didn't get supplies, but it is back in operation this week and we have already started working,' he said.

'I don't trust people taking pictures of empty refrigerators and publishing them in newspapers, frightening other people by saying there is no fresh chicken.

'As mentioned earlier, this is an annual process and all our clients know about it.'

Mehrotra said the company was planning to install another slaughtering unit so that when the existing one was shut down the other would operate.

Meanwhile, the Delmon Poultry Company, which is a local Mazra'a Fresh Chicken supplier, confirmed there was no longer a shortage of fresh chicken after having a minor supply issue.

'We had a problem for nine days as we had some renovation work taking place in our factory,' said finance manager Ayman Dawood.

'But everything is okay now and fresh chicken is available in the markets.'-TradeArabia News Service




Tags: Bahrain | Food | Meat | chicken | Poultry |

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