CHang Chang, a Sichuan restaurant in Washington DC, already noted that some of its activities had dropped after tens of thousands of federal workers Living in the region has lost their jobs. But the recent price rates increases mark an even greater blow for the restaurant.
Sichuan pepper grains, which create numb spices of regional Chinese cuisine, as well as other ingredients, face at least 145% price After last week’s trade battle China and the United States. The steep rate is an existential threat to restaurants across the country based on specialized ingredients imported from China to develop authentic flavors of their dishes, blind operators said.
“We are really worried,” said Jen Lin-Liu, director of Chang Chang Chang events. The restaurant is part of the Peter Chang restaurant group, which operates a dozen Sichuan restaurants in Washington, Virginia and Maryland.
The restaurant group is supplied with local meat and vegetables of local farmers, including an Amish community in the Finger lakes region which provides its Shiitake mushrooms and its organic pork. However, it depends on imported articles such as fermented peppers and soy sauce, which give dishes their unique taste.
“Some of the products we need do not exist in the United States,” said Lin-Liu.
The cost of other articles also increases. “There are increases in all the foods you may think of, take-out boxes with printer paper for menu print paper,” she said, adding that if the price The prices collect, the price of a $ 20 dish can reach $ 35 or $ 40.
George Chen, the chef who created eight tables, a gourmet restaurant San Franciscosaid that, although some of the articles in his menu can be replaceable by Taiwan options, this undermines the integrity he has put in to obtain the unique ingredients for his dishes.
“Replacements disrupt long -term complex relationships,” said Chen. “It took me years to find special spice sellers or the organic tea producer in China Of my many years of life and work there. »»
Eight tables is part of a larger market called China Live, which includes a dining room, a cold drinking bar and a shop that sells goods, including baguettes, glass tea cups and pots.
“The most worrying region is our retail platform,” said Chen. For these articles, “it is not possible to reorganize at pricing rates”.
For direct importers, such as the Mala market, an online store, the prices on Chinese products threaten its entire business model. Sichuan pepper grains are popular on the site, but it also sells a number of articles produced in their original region using traditional methods. The owner, Taylor Holliday, calls for these “heritage products”, which include soy sauce handcrafted in Zhongba, fermented soybeans aged for three years in the Sichuan and the sesame paste field in Shandong.
“These are products that have been made in this exact area for hundreds, even thousands of years,” said Holliday. “They have such a story, there is no way that these products can be made elsewhere.”
As part of Holliday’s business provides wholesale articles in the country’s restaurants, the majority of its orders come from cooks at home.
“Many of our customers are people who have a cultural or emotional attachment to China,” said Holliday. “It’s more than food, it is a cultural attachment to these products.”
Emei, a Sichuan restaurant in PhiladelphiaSources not only his china pepper grains, but also items such as plastic baguettes and cutlery for take -out controls. Similar to many Chinese restaurants, delivery is an important part of the restaurant’s activities.
“Until now, this is the main impact for us,” said Dan Tsao, the owner of Emei, who said that pricing hikes add $ 1 to $ 1.50 to each delivery order.
Prices can also create a supply problem for these articles.
“Importers stop their orders from China. They think 125% is crazy,” said Tsao.
Although the restaurant is obtaining in many of its local farmers ingredients, it is still based on certain imports from other countries. He orders mexico broccoli, equator shrimps and Thailand rice. Rice is particularly critical; The restaurant covers a supply of approximately 200 pounds per night, said TSAO. From Donald TrumpThe announcement of the “release day” of the earliest this month, the price per book has already increased by more than 25%.
The frantic nature of pricing policy changes has left the owners and cautious suppliers on the stages to be taken and how to plan for the future.
TSAO plans to open two other restaurants later this year and noticed certain construction estimates for increasing renovations. Most building materials also come from China.
“I hesitate now,” he said. The possibility of a recession while the prices of supplies and renovations continue to increase can change its calculation. “There will be all these training effects on the system and there is so much economic uncertainty,” he added.
Holliday said that she had a product container already en route from China which should erase American customs in about five weeks, but will not increase prices before it is constrained.
“I pray for something to happen by then,” she said. But if it is not the case, she resigned to pay the prices.
“There is no other way to manage our business,” she said.