Commercial LPG shortage hits caterers in peak wedding season

Bhubaneswar: Unavailability of commercial LPG cylinders amid the ongoing wedding season has landed caterers into unforeseen trouble, disrupting one of the busiest periods of the year for the industry in both Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.Across the twin cities, caterers admitted that they are struggling to prepare wedding feasts for large gatherings with no supply of commercial LPG cylinders. The timing, they said, could not have been worse, as the wedding season typically sees a caterer handling multiple wedding events everyday. For a wedding feast of 500 people, a caterer needs at least 10 commercial cylinders, weighing 19 kg each, and even more if there are live food counters. With distributors unable to supply the required cylinders, many caterers said they are being pushed to the edge, with no cylinders to cater to the upcoming weddings. This month, the current wedding season will continue until March 18.“On Thursday, I had a wedding event, the order for which I accepted eight months ago. The menu included several starters cooked at live counters. It took a lot of persuasion to persuade the family to cut down upon some live-counter dishes. Our chefs modified a few more dishes to prepare them on firewood in view of the LPG crisis. But not every family is accommodating because the menus were decided much in advance,” said Anil Mallick, a Bhubaneswar-based caterer.Like Mallick, many caterers said they had accepted several wedding orders until March 18, and backing out or cutting down on the menu owing to the LPG crisis was not an option.Brundaban Mishra, owner of a catering unit, said no commercial LPG was available in the Bhubaneswar market for four days and counting. Mishra, who caters to three to four weddings per day, said shifting entirely to firewood for the whole wedding menu was impossible because many of the dishes were LPG-intensive and need regulated fire to cook.Aggravating the situation, many caterers admitted being forced to buy domestic LPG cylinders from the black market at inflated rates to meet the orders. A 14 kg domestic cylinder, which typically costs Rs 939, is being sold to them at Rs 1,500 in the black market, pushing up operational costs. “We are trying to manage with whatever resources we have, but this situation is exerting immense pressure on us. Unless the supply improves soon, we might be forced to cancel some existing orders, refund the booking amount and stop accepting fresh orders,” said Tanmay Mishra, a caterer from Cuttack.The crisis also plunged families preparing for weddings into uncertainty.