Georgia Restaurant Association Asks Federal Lawmakers to Address High Comodity Prices
A bipartisan U.S. House Bill would eliminate the corn ethanol mandate under the renewable fuel standard. Members of Georgia’s restaurant industry this week lobbied members of Georgia’s congressional delegation on the measure.
Georgia Restaurant Association Executive Director Karen Bremer says a federal mandate requiring the blending of increasingly large amounts of corn ethanol with transportation fuel has led to rising corn costs.
Bremer says that’s dramatically increased the amount restaurants pay for meat because corn is used as feed for many animals.
“It’s been a very tough five years with trying to maintain food costs and also trying to keep food affordable for dining out.”
Bremer says the rising meat costs have forced restaurants to get creative.
“People are going to things like skirt steaks, tri-tip steaks, which is a cut of sirloin which has always been a west coast thing, a northern California thing, and now it’s spread across the country. People are constantly finding different cuts that have not always been the superior cut of meat.
The National Restaurant Association says last year 40 percent of U.S. corn crops were devoted to fuel production rather than fuel or feed.
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