Why did motorists line the streets leading into Dobson Friday?
To buy some Wayne Farms chicken.
That might sound like a lame play off the old chicken-crossing-the-road jokes, but it is nevertheless about as accurate and concise as can be.
Motorists from all around the region — at least one came from as far away as Charlotte — descended on Dobson to take part in a first at Wayne Farms, with the chicken processing facility selling directly to the public, at highly discounted costs from typical retail price tags.
“We had … people reaching out, saying they couldn’t find chicken or any kind of protein in the stores,” said Cory Early, complex manager at the Dobson facility. He was referring to area grocery stores often having bare meat shelves as a result of delivery issues related to COVID-19. “We always sell to our employees and our growers. We just decided to open it up to the public at our employee price.”
Those prices were as low as $7 for a 20-pound box of drumsticks, and even the highest prices, $15 for 20 pounds of breast meat or tenders, were a fraction of what those products often sell for in retail stores.
As a result, the plant was almost overwhelmed with demand — at times, traffic was lined up from the facility through Dobson, out to the entrance ramp from Route 601, and even up to two miles along that highway.
”We ended up selling 190-some thousand pounds,” Early said. “It was a lot.”
The set-up was planned to be simple, with the facility taking call-in reservations for orders from 8 a.m. Monday through noon on Thursday, with distribution planned for 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Friday. Customers were to drive up to the Wayne Farm parking lots, where employees dressed in protective gear would load the goods into automobiles, then accept payment, with no one ever getting out of their cars.
Once word of the sale got out, though, a protein-starved populous put in more orders than Wayne Farms was prepared for.
“Once I saw how many orders were coming in, we cut if off Tuesday night,” he said, adding that individuals were required to place a reservation in order to purchase any of the chicken. Even at that point, 200,000 pounds of chicken purchases had been reserved.
Early said customers in their cars were lined up outside the chicken plant at 7:30 a.m. Friday morning, prompting the plant to begin handing out the chicken early.
“We were lined up from 7:30 a.m. and we sold until after 5 o’clock. We had people still here after 5,” he said.
Despite the heavy traffic and long wait — some folks were in line for hours — Early said things went as smoothly as could be expected, and exchanges with individuals were mostly pleasant.
“The Dobson city police, the chief and his guys were great, they directed traffic all day long without even taking a break…I would say 99% of people in line were very complimentary after waiting in line that long…it was just a very good attitude for people who had waited in line for three to four hours.”
Some of those folks had a bit of a drive, as well. Early said he spoke with individuals from Statesville and Virginia, while another woman waiting in line Friday identified herself as having come from Charlotte.
In addition to offering some low prices to consumers, Early said the sale helped his plant as well. A number of the restaurants and processing plants they sell to on the East Coast have cut back on orders because state governors have limited restaurants operations. He said the sale keeps their stock from getting backed up, which would force all the meat to be put in frozen storage.
Early said the company might consider another sale to the public, but under different conditions.
“We’ll have to rethink things, just because of the logistical nightmares of this…but it’s possible we’ll do another one sometime down the road. We might have an annual sale now, it was so good. It just depends.”
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Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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