A shortage of popular food items from popcorn to chili sauce is affecting restaurants and grocery stores this summer, a sign that the world’s immense supply chains remain under pressure.
Over the past few months, many seemingly random foods have become wildly expensive or unusually hard to find. These include lettuce in Australia, onions and salami in Japan and bottled beer in Germany, sending businesses scrambling to find alternatives.
The problem is usually not so much a lack of the product itself but a stretched global supply chain. It involves whirlwind of factors including adverse weather, the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and rebounding demand.
Photo: AFP
When manufacturers cannot make enough glass bottles and aluminum cans, it trickles down to people’s ability to buy items such as soda and beer. A shipping container shortage and a tight labor market add to the challenges.
The invasion of Ukraine exacerbated those issues, cutting off supplies of grains and cooking oils, and causing food and energy prices to soar.
One of the newest additions to the list of hard-to-find items is sriracha, a Thai chili sauce that is also popular in the US. Its producer, Huy Fong Foods Inc, has been forced to suspend production due to a lack of chili peppers. Consumers are rushing to stock up, with some lamenting the “worst news of the year” and the “end of days.”
Beer drinkers in Germany are facing a shortage of bottles, partly because of the war in Ukraine, which supplies brewers with glass. Breweries in the beer-loving nation, which are already paying more for electricity and barley, are urging customers to return their empties, the New York Times reported.
A dearth of popcorn in the US has also become a source of worry for moviegoers as millions of people make their way to cinemas for the summer blockbuster season. Not only are containers like lids, cups and paper bags in short supply, farmers are giving up corn to switch to more lucrative crops.
Even vegetables are harder to come by. A lettuce shortage in Australia prompted KFC to put cabbage in its burgers. The fast food giant cited supply chain disruptions after heavy flooding in some areas earlier this year. In the UK, McDonald’s had to ration tomatoes, using one slice instead of two. The tomato shortage is due to the high cost of heating greenhouses with gas.
A global potato shortage made headlines after McDonald’s had to halt sales of large fries in several countries as supply chain snarls slowed shipments. Singapore’s KFC restaurants replaced fries with waffle hash. In Kenya, when KFC ran out of fries due to shipping delays, social media users called for a boycott of the fast food chain for not using locally sourced potatoes.
In Japan, shortages ranged from onions to salami, which meant eateries had to pull certain dishes from their menus. Saizeriya, a chain of family-style Italian restaurants, suspended a grilled chicken entree because of a labor shortage in Thailand. It also discontinued a salami appetizer after Japan suspended pork and cured meat imports from Italy following an African swine fever outbreak.
Madhav Durbha, vice president of supply-chain strategy at Coupa Software Inc, said business leaders need to rethink how and where they produce and source from. Through new technologies and better planning, they can reduce potential delays, lost revenues and “constant firefighting” to manage shortages.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last