It's not even funny anymore. I mean really, ever week I am fighting with some commodity to prevent the factory line from shutting down, EVERY WEEK. Something somewhere eventually has to give.
You talking about flying stuff over, I have a chemical resin supplier that is flying RESIN in airplanes because they can't get container bookings. This resin isn't even $100/kg and they are flying it over. This can't stay this way long term.
My theory is that you know things are going to get ugly if countries start having export bans on certain commodities. My other fear is this food price inflation needs to get under control or you may start seeing Arab Spring type stuff like the last time this happened. I think Latin America is the powder keg this time but parts of Europe are looking shaky too.
I’m so in deep in this seafood business bullshyt that it’s financially impossible to walk away. This is what I get going against my better judgment to help my friend out by becoming a partner..this dude is calling me every couple of days about an issue with getting shyt in, talking about customer complaints about prices, payroll, etc..
I got my own shyt going on in DC and I’m having to handle this bullshyt down there cause there’s anxiety with the management down there, which I don’t blame anyone for, because this shyt is becoming unprecedented. I sent the word down there to cut down from 5 day deliveries to 4, eliminated two routes we agreed wouldn’t be profitable in the long term, reduced our product offerings, raised prices by 25%, fired three warehouse folks and raised salaries for the remaining by 1.50 an hour to keep them happy all to stay in front of logistical/supplier issues fukking us up but it’s these issues that are slowly but steadily negating ALL of these money saving changes.
At this point, we’re still good with our inventory even with restaurants going crazy with orders for the time being ..but I’m looking at outsourcing some payroll and administrative functions, getting rid of some obviously redundant management positions and making changes to our sales department. If this shyt keeps up going into September then there’s going to be a need for a serious “come to Jesus” convo.
