Rosa Saba
Sept. 15, 2020
Empty shelves where toilet paper was once stacked. Shortages of flour, canned foods, hand sanitizer and even produce. The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic saw Canadians panic-buying the basics, stockpiling for fear of running out.
With a second wave of the virus looming as cases begin to rise, the question begs: are we in for another panic-buying frenzy? And can Canada’s grocery store supply chain survive a second wave?
Experts say they don’t expect a second wave of major hoarding — but there could be some temporary shortages. The madness in March and April exposed some of the vulnerabilities in Canada’s food supply system, they say, such as the centralized nature of processing facilities.
Karl Littler, senior vice-president of public affairs for the Retail Council of Canada, said there were a few real product shortages during the lockdown. Most hard-to-find items, like toilet paper, were simply due to distribution and restocking challenges in the race to keep up. Grocers are now better prepared to face jumps in demand, he said, so if a similar panic-buying spree happened with the onset of a second wave, it might not be as bad.
“We’re in better shape than certainly we were in March of this year,” he said.
Av Maharaj, chief administrative officer for Kraft Heinz Canada, said he thinks consumers don’t always realize how many steps are involved in getting a product from the production line to the shelf, which is why a sudden jump in demand might not be filled right away, because it takes time to communicate the demand, fill it and distribute the product.
In some cases, shortages were due to a lack of packaging as companies struggled to put enough product on the shelves to meet demand. Some cut down on packaging, distributing items in simpler bags to save time, according to Sylvain Charlebois, a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.
Charlebois doesn’t think we’ll see a national lockdown on the scale of what happened in March — if lockdowns happen, they’re more likely to be regional. And after the huge rise in e-commerce, grocers are better equipped to deal with extra demand, he said.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t risks.
The wildfires in California could mean shortages of certain produce, said Charlebois. And food prices are expected to increase this fall and winter, he said.
But overall, “the supply chain seems to be robust.”
However, the fluctuations in March and April exposed some vulnerabilities in Canada’s food system, according to Sarah Berger Richardson, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s faculty of law and president of the Canadian Association for Food Law and Policy.
Perhaps the biggest one was in the meat industry, she said: the outbreaks at large meat processing facilities and the resulting supply chain issues showed the impact of the centralization of slaughterhouses in Canada. If there were more, smaller facilities across the country, the impact would not have been as severe, she said.
Mary Robinson, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said in an emailed statement another such outbreak “would result in large disruptions throughout the food supply chain.”
“A good example of this was the Cargill plant closure, which processes a third of Canada’s beef. Another example is the closure of potato processing facilities, which coupled with the restaurant market closing, created a massive surplus of (potatoes).”
Robinson said COVID-19 exposed some weaknesses in the food system for farmers, due to reduced access to labour, the closure of processing facilities and the loss of the restaurant sector as a market.
Maharaj said the pandemic has made it clear that processing facilities are “critical points” in the supply chain, and keeping them operating safely is a priority.
Problems south of the border could lead to shortages of certain products, said Littler, like bananas or other exotic fruit, but he thinks Canada’s domestic food supply is strong enough to sustain consumers’ needs — they’ll just have to adjust.
Charlebois said he predicts rising interest in year-round agriculture in Canada, such as greenhouses and hydroponics, as Canada seeks to lessen its reliance on international food sources.
And Berger Richardson thinks the pandemic has shown us what the impacts of future crises might look like, such as climate disasters. She believes that the national food policy will be an important part of Canada’s way forward.
As for the fall and a possible second wave, retail analyst Lisa Hutcheson said some trends might be impossible to predict — for example, nobody could have foreseen Canada’s sudden obsession with baking bread that led to flour and yeast shortages.
But there are some products she thinks will be in high demand.
Home office and exercise equipment will be popular as Canadians begin to settle into the idea of spending more time at home long-term, she said. And many consumers will seek to “nest,” renovating or redecorating their homes, she predicted.
“Consumers right now are definitely really re-evaluating everything they do,” she said, adding that the impact of this will become apparent during Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas, as people may change the way they shop for food and gifts.
