(NBC News) This is not the time to pig out.
Beef, chicken and pork could be as scarce as toilet paper soon because so many meat processing plants have been temporarily shut down amid the coronavirus pandemic, industry experts are warning.
“We’ve just completed our third week of reduced slaughter and production,” Dennis Smith, a commodity broker/livestock analyst with Archer Financial Services in Chicago, said. “My guess is that about one week out, perhaps around May 1, shortages will begin developing at retail meat counters.”
Overall meat production is down 25 percent, Smith said, “which is a huge decline.”
The experts weighed-in as Tyson Foods took out full-page ads Sunday in The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette warning that the “food supply is breaking.”