Supply chain level 'certainly not the same,' according to area grocer

Scott Schmit has been in the grocery business for a number of years and at this time of year knows, typically, how much of a particular product his store should have.

"And it's just not there," said Schmit, manager of Oleson's Food Stores in Petoskey. "It's certainly not the same and I don't know if it'll get back to say a 2019 kind of thing anymore.

"I think we're past there."

Schmit said while ongoing supply chain issues for a variety of products is still ongoing, it's not as bad as it was a year ago.

"It's certainly better than last year," Schmit said. "I know how much I'm ordering now compared to what I'd normally order this time of year, and it is significantly more just because you're not getting everything. For example, I'll order a bunch of cases of stuff and I'll get about half, so it's just kind of a continual process.

"You're just never really caught up."

Schmit said while stores such as the one he manages are not scrambling to find items — such as flour at this time a year ago — they are all still at the liberty of what their distributor has on hand, and then they can deliver it to them.

"The particular warehouse we're working with is servicing several stores and chains," Schmit said. "If the warehouse gets a pallet of something in of something they haven't had in months, obviously everybody needs it and it's gone right away and you try to re-order it again. It's just kind of a cyclical operation."

Over the recent Thanksgiving holiday, certain items were still in short supply, Schmit said, at the Petoskey location.

"There wasn't as much variety of particular items," Schmit said. "I think we ended up being alright, but a variety of items are just not where they normally were. It's not like last year though where we were really struggling to get flour and obviously toilet paper, now it's kind of sporadic throughout the store."

On Tuesday, a pair of economists said the emergence of the omicron variant could worsen long-term supply issues.

During a media briefing, Duke University economist Connel Fullenkamp said while the emergence of the latest COVID-19 variant of concern could actually improve some inflation-struck areas in the short-term — but if cases were to rise worldwide, it could cause issues for an already sputtering supply chain.  

“I think in the short term, we might get a little bit of inflation relief, but it actually might prolong and postpone the eventual recovery of the supply chain,” Fullenkamp said. “There is, I think, bad news for the longer term.  

“We were hoping that the supply chain issues that were feeding some of the inflation would get resolved quickly. But with the rise of omicron, one of the things that it could do is both suspend production in different parts of the world and also continue to gum up the supply chain worse.” 

The omicron variant was first discovered in South Africa last week. The World Health Organization on Monday said it was likely that the variant spreads around the globe.  

"There could be future surges of COVID-19, which could have severe consequences depending on a number of factors including where surges may take place," the WHO said in a technical brief. "The overall global risk related to the (omicron variant) is assessed as very high." 

Emma Rasiel, chair of Duke’s department of economics, said the uncertainty surrounding how the omicron variant’s emergence could also factor in to the spending patterns of consumers. 

“We saw a lot of hoarding shortages last year when there were concerns about things like toilet paper and so on, that was a pandemic driven response,” Rasiel said. “You may see something similar in an inflationary environment.” 

Rasiel said consumers should avoid panicking in both their short-term purchases as well as their long-term investment plans.  

Schmit said as far as the supply chain goes for his location, it might be at a plateau of what "normal might look like right now," adding there's a number of other factors which are involved relating to the supply chain.

"Whether it's the help situation not just at the retail level, but at a warehouse level or a production level or trucking level, all these things have really hampered the supply," Schmit said. "Us being at the retail level, we're at the very end so if there's any type of hiccup at any kind of these steps, we're the ones to get affected the most."

The U.S. will need about two weeks to learn more definitive information about the omicron variant's transmissibility and severity, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.  

The variant already has been identified in countries across the world, including France, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong. Fauci told President Joe Biden that he believes "existing vaccines are likely to provide a degree of protection against severe cases of COVID." 

Biden said Monday the omicron variant is “cause for concern, not a cause for panic,” and if the U.S. needed to develop additional vaccines to address the variant, it would.