Where the Wild Things Are in the supply chain?

Hi folks. The latest Farm to Fork: The Innovators Podcast episode is now live with a great interview with Michael Halen from Bloomberg Intelligence . Mike covers numerous restaurant companies and some of the major foodservice distributors for Bloomberg and provides a great perspective on the industry including the health of the players like the consumer. Listen on your favorite podcast players or by clicking here.

One could certainly characterize the commodity markets as one of the "wild things" (cue thoughts of favorite childhood book and record) in the foodservice supply chain as we'll discuss in a moment. But the cheese markets have been anything but wild as of late with blocks in February averaging at their least expensive level in six years. But that hasn't stopped the Datum FS Foodservice Commodity Index from jumping at its second biggest level for any February in the last decade.

For those keeping score (does anyone really need to do so in the NBA All-Star game?), Datum FS Foodservice Commodity Index this month is still 3 percent less than 2023. So we have that going for us...which is nice. So where are the "wild things" in the foodservice supply chain? Recently we conducted an industry survey on the state of the supply chain and not a surprise that "Product Costs" were rated the worst (meaning product costs are expensive). Yes, commodity inputs may be lower in some instances, but manufacturing and distribution costs as well as labor certainly are not which adds to the product expense. The labor, manufacturing and distribution cost inflation has tempered as of late but it is still historically steep and may remain so for the better part of 2024!

Our featured Datum Advisor this week is Pam Panuccio who brings over three decades in foodservice distribution including with US Foods and Food Services of America . Pam, as well as numerous other members of our team, can help suppliers maximize food service distribution opportunities. To learn more please visit DatumFS.com or direct message me. Thanks for reading.