Global supply chain backups impacting local restaurants
The owner of odd fodder in Perrysburg calls the delivery and product issues worse than 2020
PERRYSBURG, Ohio (WTVG) - Supply chains are slowing down around the world, and it’s all leading to an impact at local restaurants.
The owner of odd fodder in Perrysburg says the supply issues are random. Sometimes, he will receive an order on time. Sometimes, it will take up to six weeks.
“We had multiple items that we’ve cut from the menu because we would get it for one week and not get it for three weeks later, so we just, we had to make decisions. We were like, what is it that we can do with what we have?” explains Scott Bowman, who opened the restaurant with his wife in November 2019, before the start of the pandemic.
odd fodder specializes in fried chicken and over-the-top milkshakes. Bowman says key ingredients occasionally don’t show up on time, and packaging items have been delayed.
“It started with plastic straws and then it was to go packaging and then it was certain french fries and then it was chips, and then it was … it was just one thing after the other. It’s just there was no rhyme or reason to it. It was just like this week here’s what you got what are you what are you gonna do?” added Bowman.
It’s a struggle the head of the Ohio Restaurant Association says he’s seeing across the Buckeye State and beyond.
“A lot of items that are coming from overseas are backed up you probably have seen some of this backed up at our ports that’s having impact a lot of paper products plastic products things like that that help us move food are all backed up but even processing plants quite honestly are terribly understaffed,” says John Barker, President & C.E.O. of the Ohio Restaurant Association.
The sudden shortages can leave family-owned restaurants like odd fodder scrambling to find enough product to stay in business. It’s also pushing up prices, leaving Bowman to pay more for the basics.
“Supplies are slowly starting to come back,” says Bowman. “Not so much in the plastics, but in the to-go packaging. It’s definitely getting better, but we’re still paying twice as much for it. We’re still buying things that we don’t want to have to spend that much money on because that’s just the world we live in now.”
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