Sourced from NYT | December 04, 2021
The supply chain problems
have hit businesses across the country and now it is threatening a quintessential New York staple!
Zabar's running low. Tompkins Square Bagels is down to the sticks. Pick-a-Bagel only has a few days' supply left. All over NYC, bagel makers are having a shortage - threatening its most local treasured delicacies. A fresh bagel with cream cheese.
“This is bad, this is very bad” ”
Mr. Aguilar said he had only enough cream cheese to last until Monday.
Nick Patta, who has worked at Absolute Bagels on the Upper West Side for 11 years, said his usual supplier in Queens had run out of the shop's go-to cream cheese brand for the first time as long as he could remember. He went there this week and the shelves were just empty.
Supply chain issues have plagued across the U.S. for months, causing scarcities of everything from cars to running shoes.
Now New York Bagel stores are starting to feel the domino effect on their businesses. A sudden surprise halt has left them scrambling to find and hoard as much cream cheese as they can.
New York Bagel sellers go through thousands of pounds of cream cheese every few weeks. Many shops have now started their own mixes with Philadelphia cream cheese, a Kraft Heinz brand.
The raw product that comes to bagel shops is unprocessed and unwhipped, bagel makers use it as their base for their creations. Without the base, the spreads just won't taste or feel the same and customers will surely notice.
About 3 weeks now, dairy suppliers have said the cream cheese orders that they have placed with manufacturers have come up short.
In this article featured in the New York Times, through their interviews with owners and workers at about 20 bagel shops and delis across the city, they have found that many have said that they were frazzled, frustrated and rushing to find cream cheese after learning about the shortage in the past few days.
If Bagel shop owners cannot find cream cheese, what are they going to do? Some customers at Absolute Bagels said that if cream were not available, they would be less likely to place an order for a bagel at all.
The first cracks in the supply chain started showing several months ago, it first started when some owners were starting to run low on basic items like deli wrappers, Gatorade, and coffee cup lids. Some bagel shop owners are taking their cream cheese scavenging across state lines. Since cream cheese that bagel stores use is in its rawest form, shop owners simply cannot supplement their stashes by running to the grocery store just for a few tubs.
Problems keep arising at every point along the supply chain that brings cream cheese from factories to the morning bagel. There is also a labor shortage in the manufacturing sector that began at the height of the pandemic, a lack of truck drivers because of the resistance to the vaccine mandates, and a scarcity of packaging supplies.
The cream cheese shortage is also posing a challenge to bakeries, many of which expect to churn out hundreds of cheesecakes and other cream cheese-based desserts for the upcoming holidays.
The shortage seems to be the biggest crisis facing bagel shops at the moment, also with new reports that meat, an essential ingredient in many breakfast sandwiches as well.
It remains to be seen whether the shortage will mean bagels might increase their prices or limits on orders for their customers. Distributors have said they did not anticipate the problem resolving itself anytime soon.
A bagel cream cheese is a New York institution and a "big deal" to many!
