Page 33 - AASBO EDGE Fall 2021 WEB

AASBO SUMMER CONFERENCE WRAP-UP

BY DON HARRIS
Karen Moore
Food Service Was Hampered by Shortages During Covid

Despite shortages of products and personnel caused by the Even before Covid struck, Shamrock was experiencing
COVID-19 pandemic, Shamrock Food Company continued driver shortages. As a result, the retail side of Shamrock
to supply schools with the necessities to feed students. didn’t have enough drivers to get food products to
stores. Shamrock’s business dropped dramatically with
Karen Moore, a Shamrock representative, gave AASBO the shift to retail, Moore said.
members a glimpse of why schools didn’t always get the
specific food products they were expecting. In a breakout Moore noted that schools must follow strict food service
session at the AASBO Summer Conference and Expo, guidelines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Moore told what it was like for the locally owned food but the feds were quick to respond, providing waivers
distribution and supply company at the abrupt outset of for some regulations, making it OK to feed kids. With
the pandemic and in the subsequent months and what to product and labor shortages, prices rose. Shamrock
expect going forward. faced extended lead times – what had taken two-to-three
weeks for a vendor to get a truck to Shamrock, now
“If I can’t say anything more uplifting than this – being takes six-to-eight weeks, she said.
in the food business is uplifting, because no matter what
happens, people have got to eat,” Moore said, adding “It was a big mess,” Moore said. “Everybody thought
that working with school employees who feed children when we get through summer (of 2020) we’d be back on
makes her feel she is contributing. track. Fast forward a year later, we’re still dealing with
it. All that chaos. Product demand shifts, manufacturers
In March of 2020, a peak month for Arizona tourism moved to retail to focus on where the demand was and
and Shamrock, everything was shutting down, including most of the profit was.”
schools and restaurants. “It all happened very fast,”
she said. “There was a run on toilet paper, which I still “Supply chain challenges are expected
haven’t figured out. People panicked.”
to last well into 2022.”
Truckloads of food kept coming in to Shamrock
warehouses, but nothing was going out. “We didn’t have Earlier this year when everything started opening
anywhere to put it,” Moore said. “Everything started up again, Shamrock went through a huge challenge.
backing up. We were diverting trucks, putting things “Overnight we needed more drivers and more warehouse
in storage, trying to work with vendors. We were still workers,” Moore said. The company went from moving
shipping products, probable less than what it had been. 60,000 cases a night before the reopening to a demand
Overnight, things changed. What we had in stock on of 200,000 cases, she said.
Friday was not necessarily what everybody was going
to need on Monday morning. Even if kids weren’t in Some manufacturers couldn’t produce the products they
school, they were still going to show up for food.” did previously. For example, a company that produced
a lot of chicken products had to cut back because they
She praised schools as food distributors helping to get didn’t have employees to bone the chickens, process
through the pandemic. them, load them on trucks and deliver them.

Moore said there was an immediate demand for pre- “Manufacturers are starting to streamline some things
packaged products for schools and restaurants that because of labor shortages,” she said. “They stopped
provided takeout service. The food industry lost millions making certain chicken foods.”
of dollars in fresh food and specialty products that
wound up in the trash. The industry was shifting from Moore stressed the importance of communication with
food service to retail. schools: “If we can’t get a certain product, we communicate
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