Sto­ry by SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Dou­bles ven­dors warn that the price of dou­bles may well be go­ing up in the next week.

The warn­ing comes in the wake of their com­plaints that prices for the ba­sic in­gre­di­ents for T&T’s favourite street food, have shot up in the last 6 weeks.

Pop­u­lar Cou­va dou­bles ven­dor, Shayam Mo­hammed, told Guardian Me­dia that the last six weeks have been dis­as­trous for the in­dus­try, as the coun­try was un­der stay-at-home or­ders for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. He said many per­sons in­volved in the dou­bles mak­ing process re­mained out of work and are yet to get any un­em­ploy­ment grant.

Shayam Mo­hammed said re­turn­ing to serve the pub­lic would be dif­fi­cult, since mo­bile dou­bles ven­dors, who op­er­ate out of the back of a van, may have to get their ve­hi­cles re­paired and me­chan­ics and tyre shops have been closed. He said some ven­dors have ex­pired in­sur­ance and are not able to op­er­ate.

The dou­bles ven­dor al­so points out that in­gre­di­ents such as split peas, chan­na and flour have seen their prices es­ca­late, and it would be dif­fi­cult for ven­dors who re­tail dou­bles at $4 to re­main afloat.

How­ev­er, Shayam Mo­hammed gave as­sur­ances that if he comes out to work this week, he would be fol­low­ing the strict pro­to­cols set down by the au­thor­i­ties for per­sons han­dling food. He said cus­tomers who in­sist on break­ing the line or mak­ing nui­sances of them­selves, would not be served.  

Mean­while, roti shop own­ers say they were not as for­tu­nate as larg­er es­tab­lish­ments to get in­for­ma­tion that the ban would be lift­ed on Mon­day.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Dar­rien Pen­co, spokesman for Vanes­sa’s Kitchen at Ca­can­dee Road in Fe­lic­i­ty, said they have moved im­me­di­ate­ly to start clean-up op­er­a­tions and re­stock­ing.

Pen­co told us that had the an­nounce­ment been made on Fri­day, small food ven­dors would have had am­ple time to re­stock and clean up.

The Vanes­sa’s Kitchen spokesman as­sured that his fa­cil­i­ty would be thor­ough­ly san­i­tized by one crew, while an­oth­er would be tasked with re­stock­ing the busi­ness.

Like Shayam Mo­hammed, Dar­rien Pen­co told us the last few weeks of stay-at-home or­ders have dealt a ter­ri­ble blow to him and the three em­ploy­ees who work at Vanes­sa’s kitchen.

He re­vealed that no-one ap­plied for the re­lief grants be­cause they found the ap­pli­ca­tion process chal­leng­ing. He al­so said they re­ceived lit­tle or no as­sis­tance from their lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives. 

“We held it to­geth­er and we took it day by day, un­til now,” Pen­co told Guardian Me­dia.

The Vanes­sa’s Kitchen team is ex­pect­ed to of­fer a lim­it­ed menu and con­sumers would have the op­tion of a pick-up ser­vice.

Dar­rien Pen­co al­so re­ports they have seen a hike in food prices: dhal or split peas prices re­port­ed­ly went up from $280 to just un­der $600 per 100 pounds; while gar­lic prices rose from $150 to $280 for a 25 pound bag.

Pen­co said his busi­ness would be op­er­at­ing at a very low prof­it mar­gin for the fore­see­able fu­ture.