LONDON, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Some of Britain’s meat processors will run out of carbon dioxide within five days, forcing them to halt production, the head of the industry’s lobby group warned on Monday. A jump in gas prices has forced several domestic energy suppliers out of business and has shut fertiliser plants that also produce carbon dioxide (CO2), used to stun animals before slaughter and prolong the shelf-life of food. The shortage of CO2, also used to put the fizz in beer, cider and soft drinks, has compounded an acute shortage of truck drivers in the UK, which has been blamed on the impact of COVID-19 and Brexit.
“My members are saying anything between five, 10 and 15 days supply,” Nick Allen of the British Meat Processors Association told Sky News.
With no CO2 a meat processor cannot operate, he said. “The animals have to stay on farm, they’ll cause farmers on the farm huge animal welfare problems and British pork and British poultry will disappear off the shelves,” Allen said. “We’re two weeks away from seeing some real impacts on the shelves. On the poultry side we’re hearing they’re even tighter supplies so we might see poultry disappearing even sooner.” Allen said the government was working hard to try and resolve the issue and could hopefully persuade a UK fertiliser producer to re-start their plant. The British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents retailers including the major supermarket groups, said the CO2 crisis added to existing pressures on production and distribution. “Retailers are working with their suppliers to resolve this issue, but government must investigate this issue as soon as possible and work with industry to ensure a solution is found quickly and problems don’t escalate further,” said Andrew Opie, the BRC’s director of food and sustainability. Foreign office minister James Cleverly said the government was looking to address short-term shortages. “We will ensure that we are able to put food on the table, obviously that is a real priority,” Nick Note: When we had the sea food factory industrial gases where critical for our operations. And when the nearest supply was two weeks away by boat and 1,500 miles you learned to pay close attenuation. The majority of our refrigeration were run on ammonia gas with huge compressors. If they went down we would turn 10 million in sea food to cat food or worse yet $1000 of fish-meal.the Cheap gases we used we would bring from the US in tanks mounted on 20 foot containers We also used a lot of Co2 gas. It was used to flash freeze fish fillets, lobster and shrimp. We had a IQF (individual quick frozen) Co2 tunnel to process shrimp. The cost of the gases was virtually nothing but you could not operate without it. We purchased from the commercial gas manufactures in Louisianan. All produced as a by product from natural gas. Co2 is used to stun chickens and turkeys before slaughter. It is used to freeze chicken parts like chicken McNuggets. The chicken, Turkey, fish and meat packers cannot operate without it. You could of course eat veggie burgers…. Or go total vegan….. And their is the option of foods made from ants and worms. Not my cup of tea. I suggest you fill up your freezer and let someone else worry about the shortages. This is not new. We have been urging you to stock up all year. In a food inflation your yielding more on your survival stash of foods then in your treasuries….