Foot and Mouth Disease, its effects in the restaurant industry Any time there is an out brake of any number of diseases at the production level of livestock it causes great concern in the industry and the implications are far reaching indeed. On the heels of the European Unions out break of Mad Cow Disease they now face Foot and Mouth Disease, what does this have to do with the American restaurant industry? Everything. First is the all important issue of containment this can be accomplished by bans on all pork and pork ruminants products from the EU and by assigning an additional 150 inspectors at critical ports of entry. The simple advent of the out break of FMD reduces the supply of pork and pork products available which in turn raises the price for the buyer, the restaurant and then the price of the meal you eat at the restaurant, or if you want to take it another way, people will not want to eat pork or pork products because they are fearful of FMD which lowers the demand for pork and then the producers have the raise prices to cover the cost of production. Second, the fact that this country has been free of FMD since 1929 would mean the possibility of a very fast moving FMD in this country given our very large livestock and poultry production facilities and could cause vast amounts of damage, in England at the height of its MCD there was a mass cattle kill of 500 million, could you imagine if FMD got into this country and went unchecked for just a week? FMD is of great concern to livestock owners because it spreads widely and rapidly. Third, prices at restaurants may go up to cover the expense that may be incurred from no one eating pork or pork products that may have been ordered using forecasting. ...
