CHICAGO—Dockworkers striking at U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast ports are preventing imports of beef that restaurants and retailers increasingly rely on to make hamburgers due to limited domestic supplies, traders and industry members said.
The labor strike blocks everything from shipments of automobiles to containers filled with Guatemalan bananas and Italian wine from loading or unloading at dozens of ports from Maine to Texas. Along with beef, imports of seafood, and U.S. exports of chicken are being disrupted.
Even short-term disruptions to shipments could snarl the broader U.S. food supply chain, according to experts and food importers. If the strike stretches out, the result will be either shortages of some food products, price inflation, or both, they said….