State of the Industry Update

As the pandemic continues to challenge businesses of all sizes across the United States, we want to provide an update on the state of the industry.

Our industry is starting to recover, but with that businesses are reopening nationwide and causing a dramatic increase in sales and volume. This increased demand is outweighing the current supply which is causing a variety of issues from labor shortages to product being shorted from our suppliers.

Here are some of the challenges that our industry and our suppliers are currently facing:

• Current unemployment benefits are creating a deficit in the labor pool
• Significant labor shortages are leading to production challenges causing delays in preparing product for pickup and delivery
  • Product is being shorted, temporarily suspended, put on allocation, and even discontinued by our suppliers
• Raw material shortages are causing price increases and supply issues
• Transportation market is struggling to meet the demand of increased orders due to a driver shortage and carrier bankruptcies
  • There are 10 loads available for every truck in the Midwest right now
• Bad weather in the South, in April, has significantly impacted the supply market, especially chicken, and delayed the start to the produce season

While we hope and expect these to be short-term issues, due to the uncertain nature of the pandemic, it is impossible to predict exactly when these issues will return to normal. We will continue to send updates as appropriate.  

We want to thank you for your business and look forward to our continued partnership.

Sincerely,

Jason Lenberg,
Purchasing Director