Supply Chain Crisis Continues to Hurt Fast-Food Restaurants

The current economic challenges with supply shortages and price increases aren’t expected to dissipate any time soon. And fast-food restaurants especially are feeling the pain.

On Monday, CNBC reported there are around 77 ships waiting outside docks in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach holding $24 billion of goods. However, due to labor shortages, a lack of space in railyards and warehouse issues, the goods are sitting.

“Backlogs and elevated shipping costs are likely to persist at least through the middle of next year because no immediate solution for the underlying supply-demand imbalance at U.S. ports is available,” Goldman economist Ronnie Walker said in a note to clients that was shared with The Epoch Times .

“We are experiencing temporary supply shortages of some of our products in the U.S.,” Starbucks spokesperson Nicholas Sampogna told Forbes . “Specific items vary by market and store, and some stores will experience outages of various items at the same time. These supply chain disruptions are industry-wide, and Starbucks is not immune.”

According to a recent article in Forbes, the problem is likely going to get worse for the fast-food industry before things get better.

“It is difficult to get the shipment of raw goods from other parts of the world because of COVID and shortages of shipping containers and delays in the shipping industry,” Andrea Sordi, academic director for the executive MBA in global supply chain management at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, told Forbes . “Adding on to that, the world had a huge increase in their consumption. With lockdowns, people were not going to restaurants and eating out. There has been a huge increase in demand of ready-to-eat and pickup food.”

Some ports will open up to operate 24/7 in hopes of alleviating the supply chain issue and shipping problems, according to Forbes. Still, it looks like a long road ahead for fast-food brands as they contend with yet another crisis.