If you go to the official Taco Bell website, you may be greeted with a picture that shows that flatbread tacos are coming. In the picture you can see the beef and chicken with cheese and lettuce, tomatoes and sauce piled up on top of them.
Then if you look in the upper left corner of the main page, you’ll see an orange bar with text that reads:
Sorry if we can’t feed your current crave. Due to national ingredient shortages and delivery delays, we may be out of some items.
Yes, that’s right, it’s a hard truth to face but you may not be able to get even a basic taco right now thanks to some supply chain issues that the restaurant has been facing. Owned by Yum Brands, they’re not the only restaurant in that corporate umbrella to be struggling with shortages. According to CNN, KFC is also finding themselves short of ingredients thanks to an influx in chicken sandwich sales.
So why is there a shortage? Well obviously COVID-19 still has a role in this in many ways. McDonald’s stopped serving bagels earlier in 2020, and I can personally attest to my local Burger King stating that certain menu items were in short supply for quite some time. While the pandemic has started to ease thanks to people getting vaccinated, there are still areas that are hard hit and other areas where precautions are still necessary.
In a report from CBS News on the matter, they also point out that there are issues with labor shortages that are affecting restaurants, meat processing plants, and the trucking industry. Some financial and political pundits try to paint this out as a matter of government stimulus and unemployment programs keeping people from wanting to return to work. More truthfully though, it could easily just be people wising up to the fact that these jobs don’t pay nearly enough for all the energy and stress that they cause.
No matter which way you look at the situation though, people aren’t getting the tacos they want. Or at the very least, if they are, they’re not getting them from Taco Bell. CBS also pointed out that the restaurant chain has not been very open about just how wide spread the shortages are, just what items are missing, and how long they anticipate the shortage to continue for.
Long story short, if you’re planning on having a Taco Tuesday anytime soon, you may want to plan for a back-up, Frozen Pizza Friday just in case.
