An unusual supply chain issue is going to impact some local restaurants this week. We know some farms and food producers are short staffed, and now we’ve learned that drivers for a major distributor — aren’t driving.
After weeks of late deliveries, spotty deliveries, and skipped deliveries, a local Sysco rep has told multiple restaurants that Sysco drivers are on strike and won’t be delivering this week. The rep told restaurant owners the heads up was so they could try to get product somewhere else.
For many restaurants, Sysco is just one of their food distributors, but deliveries not showing up might pose a real problem, especially if there isn’t enough lead time to order from another company, or if stocking up at the supermarket with consumer package sizes costs twice as much. Combine that with the supply chain issues we’re already seeing, like price hikes and shortages of specific items, and your favorite spot might have to charge more for some things, and might be completely out of others.
A Sysco spokesperson tells us “There were some limited and temporary delivery delays last week due to staffing challenges; however, Sysco Syracuse expects to operate business as usual this week.” They say they “expect to be able to catch up on delayed deliveries this week.”
But that Sysco spokesperson confirms that the Syracuse location is operating without a contract, after their existing labor contract expired a week and a half ago. Sysco tells us the union bargaining committee supported the latest offer from the company, but union members rejected the offer last week.
Jordan Rosenbaum from the Seabring Inn is skeptical that Sysco is about to catch up. “They say they will have it by next week, but they said that last week,” he told us this weekend. “We have three different distributors that we mix and match pricing from, so now we will just use the two.”
Gregar Brous from Collegetown Bagels and Agava tells us Sysco did “eliminate a lot of small stops last week so they could run less trucks.” He hadn’t heard of a strike or stoppage yet, but tells us, “They have had challenges, but so have all the vendors.”
Kevin Sullivan from Luna and Revelry Yards says they’re not expecting any Sysco deliveries this week, but says local agriculture is more important than ever, and adds, “We work hard to diversify our list of available suppliers and alternate products.”
One of those alternate suppliers is Cortland Produce, a family owned regional distributor that’s nearly a century old. They tell us they’re always open to new customers, and they’ve seen an uptick in business this month from existing clients who also use Sysco. Another longtime family owned regional distributor, Maines, shut its doors in the spring of 2020.
If this all seems a little “inside baseball,” I admit we don’t usually have to think about the logistics of how the food we eat gets to our plates, whether we’re shopping at the grocery store or dining out. But now that we know there’s been a driver shortage with the area’s biggest distributor, and it may be worse this week, we can be prepared when the diner’s out of cinnamon raisin toast, or wings are a couple more bucks per dozen at the sports bar.
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