While it’s no secret that the global supply chain is under significant strain, growers and shippers in British Columbia have felt that stress acutely thanks to weather issues in late 2021 and current weather watches.
As Sarah Bistritz notes, this week there’s notice from truckers that avalanche control has been shutting down highways and more flooding is expected. “There may be more delays to come,” says Bistritz, logistics manager for Sutherland S.A. Produce Inc. based in West Kelowna, B.C.
This comes at a time when the industry is still moving on from the serious flooding seen in parts of the province in November. “We saw the extreme rains closing all major highways, and it was extremely difficult to get any truckers in or out of the Okanagan area,” Bistritz says. “Even before the weather events, we were experiencing major chassis shortages due to the everchanging vessel schedules and ongoing delays. Many of the trucking companies’ storage yards have been at maximum capacity, leaving little room for extra loads. We were not able to ship as quickly as we wanted to. I’ve never seen anything like this in my nine years in logistics.”
High water levels. Photo: Twitter, BCWeather101
Spotting empty shelves
She does note that for Sutherland, most of its packers are thankfully done shipping fruit right now--the last of the product was shipped around the time of the floods. That said, she notes that empty shelves in Okanagan retail outlets are indicative of supply chain woes.
Over at CFP Ltd., also in Kelowna, Bryan Key, category director, echoes those logistics and weather concerns. “Our company has had trucks delayed in getting to our pack houses on time to pick up fruit and then delayed again when delivering to customers. The highways close at a moment’s notice due to the weather or avalanche control and appointments are missed with customers, which can mean empty shelves at retail,” Key says. “We are lucky we have a strong logistics department that have good relationships with good carriers. They’ve done a great job keeping us informed and juggling trucks and deliveries so there’s as minimal an effect on the supply chain as possible. Our carriers have kept things going to keep fresh product on shelves in very trying conditions. So we’ve been impacted, but not as bad as it could be.”
And as Key notes, the silver lining might be that the industry is learning about how resilient and flexible it can be. “With COVID, not enough workers, a heat dome we dealt with in the summer, the fires, the floods destroying the mountain passes and big delays at the ports to export our fruit, we are getting pretty used to dealing with extreme conditions,” he says.
For more information:
Sarah Bistritz
Sutherland S.A. Produce Inc.
Tel: +1 (778) 214-4268
https://www.cherries.global/
Bryan Key
Consolidated Fruit Packers Ltd.
Tel: +1 (250) 868-1400
bryank@cfp-ltd.ca
https://cfp-ltd.ca/