FARMINGTON — Supply-chain issues — the talk of the country — have touched down in Farmington. Multiple local businesses have expressed issues with receiving stock on time. In some cases, stock hasn’t come for months at a time. Now, food is a current target of the supply-chain issues and Farmington’s Better Living Center (BLC) is feeling the brunt. However, it offers the BLC the opportunity to return to its roots as a local-products provider.

The BLC is Farmington’s main natural food source. It was established in 1973 and purchased by the new owner, Wayne Drake in December 2020. The BLC stocks a mixture of brand-name health foods from suppliers and products from over 90 local vendors across Franklin County and Maine.

The BLC has battled stock shortages since at least the end of October, Drake told the Franklin Journal Thursday, Nov. 18.

About three weeks ago, Drake said that United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI), his supplier for items from non-local vendors, began capping his grocery orders. Most recently, Drake made an order for $9,000 of product and only received $4,000 worth.

“We had no heads up,” Drake said.

He said the store tracked $14,000 less in sales as of Nov. 18 than it tracked for all of October. He anticipates the store will lose $4,000 to $8,000 in revenue during the peak of the holiday season if these issues persist.

Drake has been told by distributors and truck drivers (because UNFI has been unreachable) that there simply aren’t enough employees in warehouses to pack up the trucks. The employees that are there, Drake said, are being “overworked” and end up walking out after 14-hour shifts, putting UNFI “at risk of losing everybody.”

The supply chain issues started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic due to panic buying, higher-consumer demands (for both products and delivery), shut-downs, etc. But recently, as the national labor shortage continues, suppliers have had difficulty staffing warehouses and other positions on the supply-chain line such as truck drivers.

Bloomberg reports that, “There’s plenty of food. There just isn’t always enough processing and transportation capacity to meet rising demand as the economy revs up.”

This manifests in different ways across the country. Chicago is “running short of canned goods, boxed items … and certain dry goods.” Denver is short on milk. The Portland Press Herald reports that Monte’s Fine Foods can no longer give out its signature pizza boxes because the box supplier tripled its minimum order “suddenly and with no advance notice.”

In Farmington (and elsewhere), supply chain issues and labor shortages are affecting the ability of regional stores such as the BLC, Food City and Hannaford to stock “natural, healthy food sections,” Drake said.

Drake said that UNFI’s capping has had a big impact on the store, its ability to sell specific products (brand-name and otherwise) and keep the shelves packed.

Just the day before, Drake said he was informed that the truck driver planned to drop off his week’s grocery order the following day had called out. The distributor told Drake they were unsure if they could find another driver and might have to delay the order to the next week.

“I was super discouraged,” Drake said. “It’s brutal.”

Drake said that “any grocery item is affected” by the supply-chain issues. Specifically, pre-packaged grocery items and brand-name products, such as crackers, frozen foods, etc.

Supply-chain issues and difficulty stocking the shelves would generally be tough. But Drake is concerned as the holiday season approaches.

“I need to keep stuff on the shelf and we’re going into our busiest month of the year,” he said. “Thanksgiving-related supplies are definitely hard to find right now.”

The BLC has had trouble finding stock such as “Tofurkey,” other vegetarian roasts, cranberry sauce and additional products that are in demand around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Drake noted that the BLC’s roots are in local products. However, he has gotten pushback from customers searching for specific brands.

“A lot of people are coming in looking for variety (of products, brands). So working with UNFI in their huge selection of grocery items gives us variety,” Drake said.

Drake said he and his employees have “sounded like broken records” explaining to customers throughout the day why certain products are not in stock.

They’re having to explain that “it’s happening to Hannaford too, it’s not about the BLC.”

Though Drake had not owned the store in March 2020, he feels that there are differences in the early-pandemic and present supply-shortages.

He considers early-pandemic shortages “man made, consumer driven” due to “panic buying.” The current supply chain issues are “source driven,” he said, due to “all the ships sitting in the oceans” and from a “(staffing) standpoint where they don’t have enough workers.”

Drake also noted that some of the items they are receiving have greatly increased in price. For example, the BLC purchased bulk bags of flour for $43 in January that they are now buying for $67.

“The prices … overall costs are going up, but our margins, markups stay the same. People are obviously seeing higher prices,” he said. “I have to make decisions and (often times) I don’t put full markups on stuff.”

Nevertheless, BLC prices have increased in some cases, which Drake fears “drives people to find cheaper options.”

Drake describes the “current model” as “unsustainable” and difficult for local stores like the BLC to “survive.”

“What this has shown is I think everybody needs to be less dependent on a supply chain crisis (starting) in California,” he said.

Drake fears that if the supply chain issues continue, he will have to temporarily reduce staff hours.

However, these issues have offered Drake and the BLC the opportunity to rethink the the store’s model and become even more locally based.

“It’s an opportunity to rethink the local economy,” he said. “If we can insulate our community from something bad that happens halfway across the world, I think we need to do that.

“We have the capability … And we have the traditions. I don’t think it would take too much for us to get back (to the local roots). I think a lot of knowledge has been lost. But I think if we can capture it, people are so resilient and adaptable,” Drake said.

Drake also believes that the BLC would benefit if the supply-chain forced other grocery chain stores such as Walmart and Hannaford to adapt to a localized model.

As it stands, suppliers offer those chain stores better prices than they offer the BLC “because they have the buying power.”

“The local economy levels the playing field,” Drake said. “We will thrive when they suffer … because we already have the (local) connections.”

With this in mind, the BLC has some plans in the works.

Drake wants to boost the amount of local products sold in the store. This is not only to fill the shelves but also because he believes they are higher-quality. For example, Drake compared a brand-name CBD oil to a local one produced in Franklin County. Though the locally-made CBD is $9 more, he considers it a superior product.

“Maybe you’re sacrificing some convenience, the price point,” he said. “But you don’t have to sacrifice quality to be local.”

Drake is also working to reopen the BLC’s kitchen. Here, the staff (who are already skilled cooks, bakers, etc.) will make food products that fill the gaps in town, such as baked goods and a variety of vegan dishes.

This would offer customers fresher, healthier, local options, he said. It would also fight back on food waste by preserving local products (in soups, juicing, smoothies, canning, etc.) that fly in during Maine’s “short growing season.”

This transition to a more localized model also comes at a time where the “freedom” for “Mainers to grow their own food” increases, Drake said. This is due to the Maine Food Sovereignty Act, passed by the state legislature in 2017, and “the Right to Food” constitutional amendment, passed by voters in the Nov. 2 election.

Drake expects to have the kitchen up and running sometime in January, though this depends on what profits look like over the next month due to the supply chain issues.

“The trickle down of the supply chain affects not just tables but the local economy too,” Drake said. “There’s things that we’ve planned to do to improve the store or add a kitchen, those things get pushed back.

“If I was going to hire a contractor to get our kitchen up and running, now that contractor is not getting our work,” he added.

Ultimately, Drake knows that the BLC will weather this storm.

“When I bought the BLC, I wanted to bring it into the new age,” Drake said. Perhaps that new age looks different than he imagined, but Drake is optimistic for its future.

“The store’s been here for 50 years. It survived the 70s, survived Y2K, survived the pandemic — so far,” Drake said. “We will survive. We’ll overcome it.”

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