The industry’s supply bottlenecks have reached the supermarkets. Shelves remain empty more and more often, but the supply of food is assured.
From RS editor Claudia-Isabell Schmitz
Economy / Column – So this week I am standing in front of an empty shelf at a well-known discounter in Viersen and am amazed. Have we bought hamsters again and nobody told me anything? Now that I look around, there are more and more gaps in my eye. The supply chain problem does not only affect niche products or seasonal goods; well-known brands, for example, are also running out of cans. According to its own information, Coca-Cola cannot rule out short-term restrictions on the availability of goods in the future either.
So far, industry in particular has suffered from the problem, which has long since reached the food industry. There is a lack of sweets or tobacco products, as well as bicycles, technical items or chips for cars. In Great Britain the shortage is already much more pronounced due to Brexit and a lack of truck drivers. Here even cardboard pictures are placed on the shelves – but the gaps cannot be overlooked.
Who asks the insider reports of a daily struggle to maintain the offer due to the ongoing bottlenecks. The general supply is assured, but empty shelves of individual products will accompany customers for the time being, because not only packaging materials and raw materials are scarce, which is why some manufacturers are calling for price increases. In addition, various manufacturers had shut down production during the lockdown period, were not prepared for the sharp rise in demand and because such a problem always consists of different pieces of the mosaic, the sea trade also plays its part.
The internationally disrupted logistics flows do not affect the non-food area to a significant extent. Significantly fewer empty containers have been available for months, goods from Asia are waiting unloaded to be transported – the increased demand for consumer goods is hardly manageable. Fortunately, this point is not important for junk, cheese and Co., so we are spared from British conditions. (cs)
–
–
