"I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain. (Never break the chain)"
-- Fleetwood Mac
Supply chain. Just saying the words could make most folks' eyes glaze over. Ask 'em what it means, and vague ideas about trucking and shipments might rattle around the brain. But now those words have become a little more important for a lot of people.
Issues with supply chains are hitting folks right where it hurts . . . right in their Starbucks.
"Across the country, customers and baristas are taking to social media to bemoan shortages not only of key ingredients for popular Starbucks drinks, like peach and guava juices, but also a lack of iced and cold-brew coffee, breakfast foods and cake pops, and even cups, lids and straws," The New York Times reports.
The report continues, "A spokeswoman for Starbucks said the company was experiencing 'temporary supply shortages' of some of its products. She said the shortages varied by location, with some stores experiencing 'outages of various items at the same time.'"
Starbucks' having trouble now is a tad ironic, given that it didn't do too badly during the pandemic. Turns out having a large swath of customers who are used to placing orders online and getting them through the drive-through window is helpful for business when the lobby is closed. In fact, earlier this year, executives said Starbucks had seen a full recovery with U.S. sales back to pre-pandemic levels.
But it seems even a fast recovery hasn't made Starbucks impervious to supply-chain issues. Doubtless everyone understands Starbucks doesn't just pull all those fruity drinks, iced coffees and baked goods out of thin air. The caramel, the whipped cream, the lemonade flavors, the cookies--those all arrive from suppliers.
And it looks like some suppliers are having trouble getting the usual products to market, which leads to trouble downstream for you, the customer. It may mean your favorite fruit drink is available because an ingredient is missing. It may mean that cake pop you wanted has been out of stock for days.
Starbucks isn't the only company having issues. Not by a long shot. Auto manufacturers are facing supply chain issues as well, with a computer chip shortage in particular being problematic. That's why Congress is working on steps to boost domestic computer chip manufacturing, something the Red Chinese were quick to gripe about. Home siding is backed up. Paint is on backlog.
We have a friend who flew over San Francisco the other day and noted all the container ships sitting in the bay, just waiting to be off-loaded. The Wall Street Journal reports that only about 40 percent of container ships around the globe were getting to port on time.
This is what happens when a world awakes from a pandemic shut-down. Everything is in demand. And the shortfall in the number of American workers isn't helping things.
The simple conclusion is this: We must be patient. Nothing is to be gained by pounding a table. The paint will be restocked. The siding panels will arrive. And there are other places that sell fancy coffees.
Strength.