THE impact of the foot and mouth crisis is affecting businesses far removed from farming - a roadside Asian restaurant is the latest to feel the pinch.

Saleem Akhtar, who runs The Jinnah chain of eight restaurants and takeaways across Yorkshire, as well as the United Foods cash and carry in Bradford, is currently losing £5,000 a week.

Saleem's loses are being incurred significantly at his Flaxton restaurant, on the A64 between York and Malton, where his main clientele are the farming community.

"Farmers are just not travelling at the moment, which has caused a 50 per cent drop in customers," he said.

"People are not eating out as much, mainly due to money, but also due to misinformation and a perception that this disease means that the meat is bad."

Saleem feels there is a general question "in the street" over whether you should be eating meat at the moment.

Meat prices are also to blame for his spectacular losses. Saleem bought £20,000-worth of lamb as the market was expected to go through the ceiling whilst abattoir activity was suspended for two weeks.

But when they reopened, the market was flooded with farmers trying to sell their animals as quickly as possible to avoid disease.

This led to a steep price fall and Saleem's cash and carry is left with £20,000 worth of overpriced lamb in storage.

"We have never used foreign meat in the restaurants, but we are going to have to consider using either Australian, New Zealand or Spanish lamb soon. We want to buy and use British produce, but what can you do? We will either have to use it or take it off the menu."

Also the price of chicken has shot up by 40p per kilo. The restaurant chain uses more than 2,000 kilos a week, whilst the cash and carry sells between 5,000 and 10,000 kilos a week.

"Anticipation is that chicken may double or even triple in price - we don't know what we can do, because it is impossible to predict what will happen."

In the middle part of the market, Saleem is caught suffering the brunt of the problem - if he passes the cost to the customer, they don't buy,

if he changes all his menus (at a cost of £10,000) they could be useless in a couple of weeks if the prices change again.

Updated: 11:04 Friday, April 13, 2001