But six hours later, he received a call from the building’s landlord that eggs were never collected: The restaurant suddenly closed because a staff member tested positive for Covid-19, and no one canceled the order.
After half a day in the hot sun, the eggs could no longer be eaten. So Storey came back to pick them up and took the loss.
“Half of the restaurants we go to now realize that they are closed,” he said. “A lot of times I stop at restaurants and I just have to read the sign on the front door if they are open or not.”
Now he’s sitting with a surplus of about 24,000 eggs, he estimates. And you have no idea when, or if, things will stabilize.
Unpredictability is a major problem for Storey Farms on Johns Island, South Carolina. If Storey can’t predict what the demand for his eggs will be tomorrow, much less months off, he risks overproducing, leaving him with a costly surplus, or underproduction, preventing him from having enough eggs on hand to meet demand.
The floor is not alone. Their challenges are representative of the difficulties farmers selling to independent restaurants face when trying to predict demand in these uncertain times.
Planning is essential for farmers because they have to anticipate their customers’ demand months, and sometimes years, before they deliver so they have enough time to grow or raise animals.
Recently, several states have paused or reversed their plans to reopen restaurant canteens as the coronavirus pandemic tears the nation apart, making matters even worse for those farmers.
‘With no end in sight’
Uncertainty “is really what’s causing the problem,” said Gary Wertish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, one of the groups that supports the Restaurant Law. “There is no end in sight,” he said. That makes it “very difficult to plan for the future.”
If the uncertainty continues for a year or two more, he said, some farms and restaurants will close.
Restaurants are not only closing because employees have become ill with the coronavirus.
Kate McClendon, an organic farmer based in Peoria, Arizona, said each of the 90 restaurants served by her farm faces its own problem. “We have closed some restaurants proactively because they are trying to get all their people screened,” McClendon said. “We have had some who have tried to open up just to go and then decide that it was not sustainable and close.” Others have had difficulty hiring their staff, she said.
McClendon runs McClendon’s Select with her husband, Sean. They grow dozens of different types of fruits and vegetables, including romanesco cauliflower and romaine lettuce. The farm has been in the family for decades, but McClendon is concerned about his future.
Like Storey, McClendon has also completed orders only to discover that restaurants were closed upon delivery. She started tracking social media to try to check if restaurants are still open.
Sean typically develops a planting plan based on patterns they have observed throughout the year. Now, they are guessing. “We have nothing to continue,” he said. “We have no idea how to predict what it will look like.”
It is a new world for farmers who have come to depend on certain restaurants for profit.
“We have a lot of stability when [restaurants are] open and do your usual business, “said Matt Weik, owner of Y-ker Acres, a pig farm in northern Minnesota, and sells premium meats to restaurants. Weik and his family used to grow produce, but switched to meat. About six years ago, because of the praise his pasture-raised heritage pig received, he has long-standing relationships with independent restaurants that include their products on their menus.Before the pandemic, he had learned exactly what they needed.
“I know certain restaurants that are going to do 1,000 meals a day [in] July, August and September, “he said.” And I know, after several years, that they will need so much ground pork and so many pork chops every two weeks. ”
Many of the restaurants that Weik sells have reopened. But now his needs are unknown: Recently, Weik was in the process of filling a $ 1,000 order of smoked pork chop for a restaurant when he found out it was closing again, probably until August, because an employee tested positive for Covid- 19.
The restaurant still plans to pay for the order, but not until it reopens. Weik described the setback as “another drop on the camel’s back.”
Due to the turmoil, some farmers who depend on independent restaurants are now trying a different business model.
Take Steve Matthiasson, who along with his wife owns the Matthiasson winery in Napa Valley, California. This year, he He ended up selling much of the wine he had designated for restaurants directly to consumers at a lower price.
The change “allowed us to use our wine and get our money back, but we won’t get any benefits,” said Matthiasson. “We are going to lose money this year. We are going to trade at a loss. Hopefully it will be a reasonable loss that we can bear it.”
If farmers stop selling to restaurants, that’s bad news for restaurants, too.
“A significant portion of our crops … go to restaurant sales,” said Pete Skold, co-owner of Waxwing Farm in Webster, Minnesota, along with his wife. But if restaurants close this winter, you will have to sell those crops to consumers. And once that commitment is made, you will not be able to sell to restaurants again because there will not be enough supply for both.
That means some restaurants that get through this dark period will not have a constant source of supply on the other end.
“If the restaurants close and the farms turn to other avenues, when the restaurants reopen,” said Skold, “it’s hard to jump on that boat again.”
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