Source:
https://scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3168416/us-chinatowns-running-short-tea-tsingtao-stuffed-pandas
Economy/ Global Economy

US Chinatowns running short of tea, Tsingtao, stuffed pandas as supply chain snags disrupt imports

  • Supply shortages have hit Chinatowns across the US especially hard because they rely on Chinese goods
  • Shipping container shortages, port congestion and pandemic-driven factory slowdowns have all weighed on supply
Business owners in America’s Chinatowns are grappling with supply shortages for Chinese imports. Photo: AP

In one of America’s best-known Chinatowns, restauranter George Chen has nearly run out of the Chinese oolong tea he serves with meals.

Despite ordering a new batch from China early in January, it had not arrived in San Francisco by late February, and he has been told only two-thirds will eventually make it across the Pacific. Normally, his broker in the central Chinese city of Wuhan takes only a week to send a shipment.

His last order of Tsingtao beer, a ubiquitous accompaniment to Chinese cuisine, has been delayed by a month too – and Chen cannot help feeling the brewery is “rationing” it among Chinese restaurants in the United States.

While an order of 36 woks will make it – at a princely sum of US$1,000 – he is still waiting on a mid-2021 order of stuffed pandas, which he sells at the restaurant, that has missed two delivery dates.

New York’s Manhattan Chinatown still reeling from Covid-19 pandemic 2 years on

03:06

New York’s Manhattan Chinatown still reeling from Covid-19 pandemic 2 years on

“It’s a nightmare,” said Chen, 64, who runs the three-story China Live restaurant. “I could go on and on and on.”

Supply shortages like those afflicting Chen’s business have hit Chinatowns across the US especially hard because they sell Chinese imports that US-based manufacturers do not produce.

Many shops and eateries have closed – some for good – since mid-2020 due to lack of customers during the coronavirus pandemic, outbreaks of anti-Asian violence last year, and growing homelessness and accompanying crime.

There are about 50 Chinatowns in the US, from the larger city within a city districts of New York and San Francisco to those covering just a few blocks in the likes of Portland, Oregon. Some date back to the 1800s. Larger, older ones double as tourist magnets and shopping and event hubs for Chinese immigrants.

The past two years have not been easy [and] have brought challenges which include high shipping expenses Zhu Lingqi

Restaurants look to China for shipments of tea leaves, abalone and thousand-year-old eggs. Variety stores place orders for holidaymaker goods such as ceremonial incense sticks and the red envelopes that elders use to enclose cash for children.

“Indeed, the past two years have not been easy [and] have brought challenges which include high shipping expenses,” said Zhu Lingqi, an international business executive at Tsingtao Brewery . “We do believe many businesses and industries face similar difficulties. The core is solving these issues step by step.”

A lack of shipping containers, delays while they are repositioned, pandemic-driven factory slowdowns in China and last year’s energy shortages in the mainland have all vexed importers, said Douglas Barry, vice-president for communications with the US-China Business Council, a non-profit pro-trade organisation.

Global supply chain crisis bites in US cities as store shelves empty with rising demand

01:30

Global supply chain crisis bites in US cities as store shelves empty with rising demand

“Lurking out there may be fuel spikes due to supply concerns over uncertainty in east Europe just as high shipping costs began to drift lower,” Barry said.

Vincent Fung, a Chinese-American operator of the Buddha Exquisite Corp. paper goods store in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is fighting to keep his 3,000 square feet (279 square metre) shop stocked with religious texts, incense and joss paper. All are in demand before the Tomb Sweeping Festival that falls on April 5.

“Even if you want to get stuff through airmail, nothing can come in, nothing can go out,” Fung said. In 2020, he recalled, “a lot of things were crazy. The supply chain was all broken from the source and everything got backed up to here. [China] got hit first, so all the factories got shut down and didn’t want to come back to work.”

Chen’s China Live restaurant raised prices last year to avoid running short or skimping on quality, but it has held off any further hikes this year.

He is using other brands of beer for now and getting tea from another source in San Francisco who happens to have a bigger supply.

The Jinghua Lou, a 25-year-old northern-style restaurant on the perimeter of Portland’s Chinatown, gets its food, beer and tea from local wholesalers. But owner Cong Minxun has found the suppliers have run short of key ingredients or raised prices over the past two years.

“You go into a store and see much less on the shelves,” said Cong, a native of Weihai in eastern China, who says five neighbouring eateries have closed during the pandemic over lack of customers and break-ins by homeless people. “Wholesalers just don’t have supplies. You order 10 items of something, whatever it is will definitely come up two to three items short.

But there are signs of relief. Tsingtao has “recovered” its beer supply chain to the US and will work together with a local distributor to meet order demands “for sure”, Zhu said.

Shipping tonnage is also being increased as Chinese factories “hum” and US ports clear backlogs, said Barry, from the US-China Business Council.

He expects progress by August. “Dependency on China for a dizzying array of goods can’t be easily broken nor should it,” he said.