meat shortage 6pm

Tracking the latest corona- virus cases in the tristate-- we are also looking at how the on-going pandemic is impacting everyday life.

Good evening and thanks for joining us -- i'm jessica hartman and i'm brian miller we'll get to those latest confirmed cases in just a moment-- but first-- a look at how rising meat prices are making a difficult time-- even tougher for some families-- we begin tonight with reporter tyler druin-- who shows us how inflated costs are affecting local shoppers "i mean this is ridiculous, i mean what are we suppose to feed our kids now" tri-state shoppers frustrated the meat selection is becoming more expensive and less available.

Over 5,000 cases of covid-19 have rocked 115 meat processing facilities nationwide - including two west kentucky hatcheries- "i live in webster county and there isn't a lot of stores there, so we have to travel to hopkins county to get meat, with the meat shortage its very expensive and very hard to find we haven't had meat in months" perdue farms - and tyson foods fought off over 300 combined cases of the coronavirus - those food service workers not out of the woods yet- both companies - closing down their processing factories to clean - weeks ago- putting workers in quarantine - meaning - the demand for meat is up - while supply is down "i would love to see them bring the prices back down to normal, you know sale us some meat, we can feed our families with, we are all growing, and going through hard times right now" you can see the poultry section wiped clean as more meat processing facilities close nationwide- "perhaps we could have marked up the burgers and stayed profitable, i'm not going to go crazy on prices, we would just lose customers doing that" phillip ferrell took over his family business years ago his restaurants go through thousands of pounds of beef on a weekly basis wholesale beef prices are up right now - over six dollars a pound - consumers - wiping out store shelves - to beat the surging prices- costing small businesses to close like ferrell's restaurant- causing new families to suffer at the dinner table "we chose not to open, the price of meat has gone crazy" in western kentucky tyler druin 44news.

Tonight at five --- gas prices -- increasing