The BC situation continues to affect western provinces. (Canadian Press)

By battlefordsNOW Staff

Delays, delays

Supply chain shortages affecting Battlefords retailers

Nov 22, 2021 | 6:15 PM

The crisis in British Columbia continues to spill over to the prairies.

In addition to the thousands of people being displaced from their homes, delays in shipments of a plethora of supplies continues to effect Alberta and Saskatchewan. While there were immediate impacts to large chain stores and agriculture producers, there’s also an impact on retailers.

Tanis Roberts, Nutritional Product Advisor at Nutters in North Battleford, has seen an impact already from the supply shortage, as their warehouses are primarily in B.C.

“I have multitudes of orders sitting in trucks right now,” she said.

Because the highways remain shut down amidst flooding and mud, there’s no pathway into Alberta, and eventually to Saskatchewan. Roberts said there’s no quick fix for the situation.

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“I have no ability to order potentially 40 per cent of orders, specifically supplement supply,” she said. “They have no ability to get product to us.”

In the meantime, Roberts said they are watching and waiting, while communicating with distributers.

“They are the ones proactively scrambling to find ways to move their products,” she said. “There’s some hope with the water receding at a couple of highways, so they can get back on the road for at least one direction, and they’re trying to reroute things through the states.”

“It’s going to be interesting in the next couple weeks to see how this works out.”

However, in addition to the short term problem, there’s a long term concern. Roberts said the issue is that if you have product that sells out, you may not be able to get it back in soon.

“This isn’t a little problem, this is a big problem, which isn’t going to go away by just building a new road,” she said.

“Delivery being pushed by the pandemic already has been unbelievable.”

Some business owners have been spared from the shortages caused by the B.C. floods, but they are also seeing delays, much like the rest of the pandemic. Angie Friedrich, owner of the Battleford Boutique, can speak to this first hand, with a recent example of Christmas pajamas highlighting the issue.

“Usually they’d be here by the end of July,” she said. “They just got shipped out and I’m expecting them within a week.”

“Delivery time has been an average of two weeks, and we’re talking within Canada. That’s not normal in a typical year and we’re not used to receiving stock this late, especially ahead of the holiday season.”

Supply shortages have been around at various stages since March of 2020, with a variety of factors playing a role. Friedrich couldn’t say if ships stranded at U.S. ports, limitations for border crossings or trucking industry challenges is the most to blame, but she said it’s likely a combination of all these things.

“The ports have a lot of stock tied up, but from the manufacturing aspect, they’re not able to produce the product in a timely manner,” she said. “Maybe they don’t have the staff, but that’s a guess on my part.”

Fortunately for Friedrich, the store has received most of the orders they need, but they’re monitoring the rest of the holidays as the situation in B.C., and the one affecting the world, progresses.

“I’ve received just about all of my stock that I’m going to be getting, but those are all coming from the East,” she said. “Long term, we’ll see.”

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cjnbnews@pattisonmedia.com

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