industry voices
CHALLENGES AFFECTING THE
SPECIALTY FOOD INDUSTRY
You can find full video interviews
when purchasing this year's report.
"The high costs of everything are
a challenge for us. We're a small
manufacturer, we're not the Krafts
and the Mondelezes of the world, we're
Alexian Paté. The challenges of higher
costs are tough, the command for higher
wages, higher prices of raw materials
and packaging, the availability and
lead times … the biggest [issue] is lead
times and being able to put through
price increases. We are looking at 60- to
90-day windows where our customers
will allow us to do a price increase. For
a small company that's very scary."
—Alexandra Groezinger, president, Alexian Paté
"Our biggest challenge right now
is understanding the next phase of
product availability and how macro
things will impact that. So, we are still
seeing bottlenecks in the supply chain
both from imported product and some
domestic delays … a lot of our cheese
suppliers are having to short product,
and I think a lot of that is due to the
war and the aftermath of COVID."
—Cassy Kehoe, senior fresh category manager, KeHE
"[With regards to supply chain] we've
managed okay, but it just seems
like at every corner we're dealing
with playing whack-a-mole with
something not being available."
—Jon Pruden, CEO, Taste
"All the supply chain stuff that's troubling
for brands is absolutely hitting us on the
buy side. And we work with a logistics
partner for our warehousing, and they
are certainly experiencing the labor
crunch that the rest of our industry has."
—Kate Harper, chief brand curator, Hive Brands
"We're not going to increase price but
we're seeing our margin eroding right
now. Our packaging cost is +30 percent,
raw materials, on average is +10 percent,
and in total that's an increase of the cost
of goods sold around 15 percent. Right
now, that's not being offset by anything."
—Pierre Jamet, chief sales officer, Petit Pot
Specialty food makers and buyers share many of the same challenges in today's business
environment, especially issues around staffing, supply chain, production, and inflation.
Several industry professionals were interviewed as part of this year's annual research,
The State of the Specialty Food Industry. Following are some excerpts.
FALL 2022 39
MAKER MIX
