Poultry producer Astral Farms struggles to supply chicken meat due to power cuts

Regarded as South Africa’s biggest poultry producer, Astral Foods, has announced that it was battling to keep up with the demand for chicken at fast food restaurants.

This was due to the devastating and ongoing power cuts and the announcement comes just after KFC decided to close some of its restaurants.

Astral Foods has admitted to supplying constraints amid shortages in chicken, while other KFC franchises scaled down on their menu offering.

The poultry producer said that the operational disruptions had affected other fast-food restaurants as well per EWN.

“Astral also said it recorded a direct loss of R126 million in the financial year ending in September 2022 due to power cuts,” reported the news portal.

“The group said that it expected market conditions to deteriorate amid the general decay of municipal infrastructure, as well as persistent power cuts.”

Astral Foods CEO Chris Schutte said that as a result, it had become more expensive to produce chicken in the country.

“This has seen consumers pay above-inflation prices for chicken,” he said.

“Poor condition of state-owned enterprises responsible for essential services was only making matters worse, impacting investor sentiment.”

Meanwhile, water supply interruptions also cost the company at least R9 million in the same financial year.

A look at a similar report, BusinessTech Africa posted that one of the most loved restaurants in South Africa, Kentucky Fried Chicken has announced a temporary closure of some of its stores.

KFC said this temporary closure is due to the ongoing load shedding implemented by Eskom.

Although Eskom suspended load shedding for the weekend of Christmas, the embattled power generator introduced power cuts on Monday.

As the country’s largest fast-food chain, KFC said that it would be closing some of its stores temporarily due to power cuts.