Breaüxdoo Bakery owner Gage Lang’s supply costs have nearly doubled.
YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
SOURCING
Food Chain Challenges After lockdown, labor shortages and more, local restaurants now must navigate an unstable supply chain BY CHEY SCOTT
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ardboard shortages, backlogged ports, skyrocketing food prices — all of these factors and more have compounded at every stage of distribution to create one of the most widespread global supply chain disruptions in modern history. These pandemic-caused woes impact businesses and consumers alike, but restaurants — an industry that’s taken punch after punch the past two years — are once again dealing with major challenges. Not being able to reliably source essential ingredients and supplies has gotten so bad for one local restaurant, MadLo’s Ramen House in Nine Mile Falls, that its owners decided to temporarily close last week. “We run out of things very frequently, and we’re last on the chain as far as who gets what when we place our orders [from suppliers],” says Megan Corns, who owns MadLo’s with husband Jeremy. “We ran out of fresh, never-dried ramen noodles, and had to switch to an udon noodle,” she continues, “which made our community upset, but we couldn’t do anything about it.” Eggrolls, chicken, bao buns, to-go containers and numerous other supplies have been nearly impossible to find from the restaurant’s regular suppliers, so the Corns have instead spent hours each week driving around to restaurant supply outlets to try to find what they can’t get delivered. “That takes up most of our time, hunting for to-go containers, boba straws, cups, chopsticks and the sauces
we buy,” Corns says. She doesn’t know how long MadLo’s will be closed but says it’ll likely last until supply issues improve.
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or other local food purveyors, these sourcing woes haven’t been as hard hitting, but the increased cost of goods has been universally felt. At Breaüxdoo Bakery in Spokane Valley, owner Gage Lang says getting packaging the bakery needs to sell its cookies and cake slices via delivery and wholesale to grocers like My Fresh Basket has been difficult, due to higher prices and scarcity. “We order our cake-slice containers from New Jersey, and typically it’s a two-week lead time, but now it’s a month and a half,” Lang says. “We have to order them in bulk now, but with raised prices and that longer lead. Last week, we couldn’t get pizza boxes anywhere, and I drove to six stores.” Lang says a typical weekly order of ingredients and supplies for the bakery was once in the $1,400 to $1,600 range. “Yesterday’s was $2,400, so it’s crazy, and they’re projecting the next few months to be even worse,” he says. Even though his business’s costs have nearly doubled, Lang hasn’t yet passed those increases on to customers. “There is zero percent profit — no money at all — and that is just to stay open and pay every supplier,” he says. “I don’t want to sell a cookie for $4, but we’re left with no choice if we want to remain in business. This is just to
stay afloat, it’s not like someone is laughing their way to the bank.” At Hogwash Whiskey Den in downtown Spokane, Executive Chef CJ Callahan says the first big cost increase due to the pandemic was for gloves, which went from roughly 8 cents per glove to 50 cents at peak. Then garbage bags went up. Next was fry oil, going from $20 per 35-pound unit to $49. Short ribs went from $6 to $13 per pound. “Dealing with people to try to explain why they have to pay an extra $1.50 for chicken wings — it’s not fun,” Callahan says. “Very few people give us trouble, but sometimes you get that one guy who’s like ‘I don’t want to pay this, it’s bullshit,’ but it’s not our fault, it’s just how we operate and have to do so to stay open.” To balance exponential cost increases for some items, like the aforementioned chicken wings and short ribs, Callahan’s tried to spread price hikes across the bar’s entire menu. “We do just eat the cost every so often, but we’ll also increase the price of something that happens to be lower to balance it out, because you want people to come out still, but also don’t want to gouge them.” Higher costs and scarcity has also forced Callahan and his team to get more creative with what they’re serving. “For the short ribs, I pulled the meat and put it in empanadas to spread out the cost,” he says. “So for stuff like that, you look on the bright side.” ...continued on next page
NOVEMBER 25, 2021 INLANDER 63
