Chicken restaurants, vendors see sales drop

Fadli, The Jakarta Post, Batam

The kitchen at Windsor Fried Chicken in Batam is not nearly as busy as it was just weeks ago, and employees like Asrul, 34, now often find themselves with little more to do than try and look busy.

"People are afraid to eat chicken," said Asrul by way of explaining the business slump.

Erwin Mandailing, the owner of Windsor Fried Chicken, said fried chicken sales had noticeable dropped over the past few weeks since bird flu made the headlines in the country.

Prior to the bird flu scare, Erwin sold about 250 cooked chickens a day at three Windsor branches in Batam. But business has dropped by about 50 percent over the last several weeks.

The three Windsor outlets are now open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., where before they used to shut at 6 p.m.

"The longer you operate, more it costs. I think it will be three months before the situation returns to normal," Erwin said.

Novi, a chicken vendor at Toss 3000 market in Batam used to supply about 1,000 chickens a day to 20 Padang restaurants in the city.

"But the orders have been decreasing since the issue of the bird flu virus emerged here. I guarantee that our chickens are not infected with the virus," said Novi, who has been in business for three years.

Since the issue of bird flu made national headlines, he has been selling about 700 chickens a day. Novi gets his chickens from Tanjung Balai Asahan in North Sumatra and from local farmers. He sells his chicken to the restaurants for between Rp 18,000 and Rp 22,000 a bird.