Chile Supermarkets Run Out of Food as Truckers Strike

(Bloomberg) — Chilean supermarkets are running out of fresh meat, hospitals may not have enough oxygen and salmon processing plants are shutting down as striking truckers block roads to protest the high price of fuel.

The strikers yesterday resolved to extend their protest, originally scheduled to last 48 hours, leaving grocery stores short of basics, Fernando Alvear, president of the Chilean Supermarkets Association, said today in an interview. Stores in the capital may start running out of produce today, he said.


“We’re already having more serious problems in some regions outside Santiago,” Alvear said. “It gets worse as the hours go by.”

Transport companies will halt work indefinitely to press the government to cut fuel taxes after diesel prices surged 50 percent this year, said Diego Ramirez, a spokesman for the National Guild Confederation of Chilean Truck Owners. Shoppers have reacted to the strike by hoarding goods, exacerbating the shortages, Alvear said.

Hospitals may start to run out of oxygen if the strike lasts another 24 hours, El Mercurio reported on its Web site, citing Rene Le Feuvre, a manager at Indura SA, which distributes medicinal gases. Salmon-processing plants have closed from lack of fuel for generators, Rodrigo Infante, head of the Chilean Salmon Industry Association, said in an e-mail.

“The whole supply chain is stopped,” he said.

Bloomberg