The reason they made the decision to bulk up their inventory was because their overseas suppliers warned them that China was shutting down factories ahead of the Winter Olympics to improve the air quality during the event so they have "blue skies" which they definitely don't have right now.
So a top-down directive given by the CCP (Governing authority in China) combined with changes in payment policies by shippers affected the purchasing activity of a US manufacturer creating a cash flow crisis for them. Take this one small example and consider it when extrapolated over the entire supply daisy-chain.
Now consider the effect on supplies that there will most certainly be as the result of thousands of truckers in total gridlock in Canada - coming soon to the US and many other parts of the world.
This is no joke. Truckers and truck deliveries account for just about everything we need to run a business. Without truckers for an extended period, the entire economy goes into a coma. Materials critical to producing food (fertilizer) and equipment (computer chips) will be unavailable - chip manufacturers are at 5-day inventory levels down from 40 days.
"Every truck taken out of the supply chain is one less truck that can haul goods. This comes as virus-related worker absenteeism and labor shortages have prolonged supply chain woes. Snarling chains, even more, has been an answer by the people to band together against medical tyranny by the government. There's just one problem, blocking cross-border trade or at least slowing it down will further supply chain issues and could spark meat shortages in the US."
This movement is picking up steam; now the farmers are getting involved - anyone who believes these combined disruptions won't affect food shelves is delusional.
On the other end of the consumption daisy-chain are restaurants and consumer venues who are under attack in some jurisdictions by the state and city authorities such as the Washington DC, NYC, LA and a few other major cities. Restaurant owners in these cities are required to police the vaccine status of their patrons in order to serve them. Those who refuse to comply and don't wish to discriminate are sanctioned by the health authorities and closed. That is, there is no choice for business owners but to comply or die.
"enjoying a burger at The Big Board and chatting w/ staffers also there to show support for the DC restaurant, which the DC health dept just just shut down about an hour ago after it openly refused to enforce vax/mask mandates" - Emily Brooks
And then there's the farmers.
I'm not going to sugarcoat this folks, things are not good.
Farmers have been warning us now for years but since the shelves haven't been affected yet we've collectively ignored them with the help of TV news.
"The way I see it, there will be a major grain shortage later in the year, especially with corn. I mean, we are small with that. What about these people in the midwest who have like 10,000 acres of corn? This will not be good.”
I probably sound like a broken record by now but it is a fact that having extra capital in the situation we're all in right now makes sense.
The materials & supplies you purchase today using my funding capital will be worth more than the capital costs in a year. I was joking when I said "buy bacon" last year but today it's twice the price while my rate is exactly the same. If your business needs capital to lock in prices please call me for a quote.