Missing Something From Your List For This Holiday This Season?

If you’re having a hard time finding a traditional item or that perfect gift for your holiday celebrations, there are a lot of potential reasons behind that.

We’re all familiar with supply chain challenges, whether it’s misplaced shipping containers, high-priced air freight, or not enough truckers to get the products to retail shelves or your door. By now, this isn’t news. In fact, many shopped early to be sure they could get orders in time. Still, mail has been slow (personally, I saw a delivery take 2 weeks to go from Philadelphia to Cleveland), but last mile delivery drivers can still be seen out making deliveries after 10 PM and even in the overnight hours.

High demand…that’s also not new, although the products involved have continued to shift. Many of us have had the same ideas for how to spend our pandemic period, from home baking to gardens and home pools to camping and hiking to outdoor socializing in backyards and event spaces, or buying chicken (alive for eggs or prepared for eating). So a lot of things are in short supply mainly because so many of us want them. We have to be flexible and willing to wait – and possibly pay high prices – for these in-demand items.

But what about hackers? Yes, cyberattacks have been disruptive this year. Well-known production disruptions due to hackers included

• JBS, a global meat processor, had some operations in Australia, Canada, and the US taken offline in June due to a cyberattack. The company paid the equivalent of $11 million in bitcoin paid as ransom.
• Schreiber Foods, a leading cheese supplier that lost several days of production in October. This loss of production has been one factor in the “cream cheese crisis” this holiday season.

Freedonia analysts continue to track changes in supply chains and other challenges to production that create both roadblocks and opportunities for market participants and potential entrants.

For more information and discussion of opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research, particularly our series of studies in the Consumer Goods and Packaging industry catalogs. Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.