LAS VEGAS (FOX5)– Panic shoppers have left grocery store shelves empty, from toilet paper to meat.
Friends and family of Jeff Pugh turned to him for help.
“It was chefs, it was their wives, our neighbors, ‘hey, you know, we don’t want anything for free, but can we please come down?’ And we were like we got to do something. I mean it’s complete chaos in the supermarkets,” said Pugh.
Pugh is the CEO and Founder of Freedom Meats.
The wholesale food supplier sells high-end meat to places like Hell’s Kitchen and The Mayfair Supper Club.
Normally with conventions, this is Pugh’s busy time of year. They have anywhere from $2.5 to 5 million worth of meat in the warehouse.
While some community members can’t find what they need from the grocery store, restaurant suppliers like Freedom Meats has too much inventory.
Pugh helped solve both those problems by opening his company to locals.
On Sunday, Pugh said he laid off all but 15 employees. Later that night, once he launched a new website, Blackbox Meats, things started to look up.
“The orders starting coming in live and we would come in in the morning and be like, ‘we need another three, four more bodies’ and so, we would start calling them up and they’d be here within an hour. We are all looking at each going, how did this just happen?” said Pugh.
Pugh said on a typical day, they receive 170 to 200 purchase orders from restaurants on the strip.
In just two days of launching Blackbox Meats, they had more than 2,000 orders and were able to start bringing employees back to work.
“We are an amazing family, so I want to do everything I can to get everyone back and take care of the community that’s been so great to us,” said Pugh.
Pugh said since the uptick in orders, they are a little behind. Crews will be working through the weekend to deliver orders and catch up.
If you would like to place an order, go to Blackbox Meats.
Copyright 2019 KVVU (KVVU Broadcasting Corporation). All rights reserved.
