By Oli Herrera

HOLIDAY PREPARATIONS

Some businesses prepared for holiday demands, others fall victim to supply chain crisis

Dec 3, 2021 | 5:46 PM

PRINCE GEORGE—It’s been another difficult year for businesses. Aside from the pandemic, there has been a global supply chain disruption which has caused shortages. Everything from microchips, tires, toys, and even food has been hard to come by sometimes.

Now with the flooding situation in the lower mainland, there are concerns that it’ll cause greater stress here in the north this holiday season. In Prince George, the situation is mixed.

“I’m confident we’ll have more than enough products to get us through this season.” said Tom Sentes, Owner of Homesteader Meats.

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Homesteader Meats has recently opened up its second location in Prince George. Gathering nearly all of its products from suppliers and farmers in the north. Because of that, his shops have been stocked for weeks with butchers working around the clock to fill orders.

“We deal with local farmers, local chickens, we’re not having a big problem solving that.” said Sentes.

He admits that this year, Turkeys made be hard to get on everyone’s dinner table; but that is not a problem unique to the current supply chain issue. Each year, hundreds of turkeys are ordered for the holiday season and they run out of stock due to an expected holiday demand.

“Normally after the 18th, 19th, it starts getting hard to get turkeys, but other than that we should be alright.” said Sentes.

Poultry, pork, and beef won’t be off the shelves either. But the shop owner is asking customers to get in early to avoid long lines.

“Our lambs are fresh, our pigs are fresh, our beef is fresh. I’m very proud of the process we have here. We have 5 butchers that work very hard to get the product from farm to table.” said Sentes.

However, other businesses aren’t having the same luck. Cameron Stolz, owner of Great White Toys, Comics, Games, says that he tried to get ahead of the christmas rush by ordering products back in July, but will still face some empty shelves.

“Lego is having trouble get the plastic pellets to make the bricks for Lego for them to get it shipped out of mexico and into the US then distributed into Canada. It’s just one roadblock after another after another.” said Stolz.

Puzzles and board games may also be hard to find. Though some of his suppliers are based in Canada, they can’t get the raw materials that are coming from other parts in the world.

“The ships just aren’t arriving in time. There’s containers literally sitting on ships outside of vancouver that aren’t being unloaded right now and won’t arrive in time for christmas.” said Stolz.

While both owners don’t have the same problems from the global issue, they agree on one thing: they’re asking customers to be patient when shopping this holiday season and if a product isn’t on the shelf, to wait or try to look elsewhere.