Thailand: Food shortages beginning as COVID-19 limits production

As Covid-19 outbreaks shut down factories and food processing plants and pull infected workers off the job, Thailand now faces the possibility of food supply shortages. Markets and supermarkets are beginning to see reductions in available stock after nearly 100 food processing plants across the country have been closed or partially closed with production capacity reduced. Some markets are closing because of a lack of supply of foods to sell. In other public markets, many stalls have closed and ones that remain open often run out of stock, unable to cater to all their customers’ demands. Food suppliers with shortages are decreasing the frequency of their deliveries and only delivering a fraction of the quantities ordered to ration stocks that are not keeping up with demand. The scarcity has also started to drive food prices up with one local vendor saying chicken prices have increased at least 5 baht due to supply shortages and closed processing plants. Shoppers are beginning to ...