Posted on 07/20/2021 6:54:47 AM PDT by dynachrome
Supply chain problems continue to plague the restaurant industry, leading big chains Taco Bell and Starbucks to warn consumers on Monday that some items may not be available.
Starbucks told customers on its app that “due to supply shortages, some items are temporarily unavailable.”
That echoed warnings that have persisted at the chain’s locations for months. Consumers have complained on social media channels about periodic shortages of items such as green tea.
At Taco Bell, customers are complaining about a lack of hot sauce. The Mexican fast-food chain’s website warns customers that not all items are available at the moment.
The company, owned by the Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands, blamed transportation problems for the shortages.
“Due to national transportation delays happening throughout most of the industry, we may be temporarily out of some items,” the company said in a statement. “Apologies for the inconvenience and we hope to feed fans’ current Taco Bell cravings again soon.”
Restaurants have faced shortages of everything from sauces to pickles to chicken wings in recent months due to a host of issues—including weather problems in Texas and intense demand from consumers coupled with supply limitations.
(Excerpt) Read more at restaurantbusinessonline.com ...
Our HEB grocery store has had empty shelves for the past 20-25 years. Venezuela has nothing on them. Either an entire aisle will be empty or it will be filled the whole length with Whataburger brand mustard. People always beg or steal milk from your cart because the dairy section might be empty except for 3 lonely containers of sour cream.
I’ve had to get frozen fish by doing something similar to a drug deal with “the guy in the back”. Then the cashiers and bag boys get all in a tizzy because they didn’t know there was any frozen fish.
I haven’t seen fresh cauliflower or canned pork ‘n beans in over 15 years.
The sales circular is a joke because half was ever ordered and many regularly advertised items had never in the history of the store been ordered. The typical excuse is it wasn’t on the truck - “Oh, you want the 8 count corn tortillas in this week’s ad? Yeah, we’ll be getting that tomorrow. How many, you ask? Well, one. Uh, yeah, that’s one. No, not one case but just one 8 count package.” Seriously, no lie. Straight from the manager’s mouth. Who loads one 8 count package of tortillas on the truck? Maybe because another store refused to accept a torn package and HEB is so cheap they’d pass garbage on to another store. Yep, Venezuela has nothing on us.
They quit taking coupons 10 years ago but when they did accept coupons they would take the item off the shelf even if it was perishable like yogurt.
Since Covid, we’ve been driving 4 towns over to shop. It is a million times better in the middle of lockdowns than our local HEB in normal times but it still has out of stock items and limits.
What will the masses do without their double frothed soy-milk caramel macchiato grande?
Well, if you increase the pay of the lowest paid workers, it lifts all boats. Heck, many union contracts even have a “minimum wage” multiplier in them. When the minimum wage goes up, theirs automatically goes up. Everything costs more so, well, everything costs more.
“the shelves in our grocery stores have been half empty for many months.”
I haven’t seen any shortages here in the DC burbs. I usually go down most isle because I like to grocery shop and look for sales but also for early (very early) morning exercise. (my version of mall walking!)
Watchin prices of go up especially beef, chicken, fish and shellfish but no shortages....YET.
Sure you live where the politicians are. The powers that be make sure the shipments get into that city and area. Rest assured that in this area of the West coast things have been skimpy even at our Walmart.
Pennies on the dollar more.
So far...
The cost of labor in massed produced durable good is cheap wherever it’s done. Is degrees of cheapness..
I can’t argue with that. It’s all incremental.
Fact is, only two things in this world are of any value at all: Human effort and real estate (raw materials pulled out of the ground). So once you take away the value of the real estate that is used to build something like a car, the rest of the cost is tied up in the cost to produce it. And that encludes the folks that work in the companies tax department, IT department, R&D, Design, treasury, accounting, security, janitorial, as well as line workers. Increase wages by 10% and the price of the car goes up accordingly.
Seems like food is running out too.
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