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US labor disruption puts domestic food importers in a pinch

Domestic food importers are scrambling to airlift in meat, vegetables, fruits and other supplies even though the US West Coast ports are set to reopen today.

"We've planned to fly in apples from France and beef from Australia to meet demand for products normally imported from the US," said Cheng Yun-hsiang (程雲香), a buyer at Far Eastern Geant Co (愛買吉安), a French and Taiwanese joint venture hypermart.

After a 10-day lockout, the 29 US West Coast ports are set to reopen for traffic today, although it may take another six to eight weeks to clear the backlog of containers before returning to normal operation.

Cheng added that Geant was forced to cancel a promotion of California-grown Fuji apples last week, despite it being peak season for the fruit.

"Our imported American apples got stuck in the West Coast lockout ? therefore we changed our strategy and are now pushing French apples instead," she said.

French apples normally occupy less than 10 percent of Geant's shelf space.

Meanwhile, a major US restaurant chain in Taiwan has also been forced to rely on air delivery.

"I doubt how quickly deliveries will return to normal, so in order to make sure our product supply is OK, we've already shipped some imports by air," said Sophie Cheng (周雅敏), a marketing manager at TGI Friday's Taiwan.

The move will hike transportation costs by nearly 20 percent, she added.

Imports such as cheese, pasta, frozen garlic bread and romaine lettuce will be affected.

Cheng explained American cuisine can't be cooked without the right ingredients and it is nearly impossible to find them locally.

Friday's is also running low on Idaho potatoes.

"We can only use US imports for baked potatoes ? If we have to use Taiwan-grown potatoes, the menu has to be changed to mashed potatoes instead," Cheng said.

The US theme restaurant is also preparing to temporarily import beef from Australia.

"Beef as well as potatoes are bulky products and it costs a lot to ship by air ? so we will source locally or from nearby nations," she explained.

Current inventories are expected to last into early next month and prices will remain unchanged.

Other food importers reported less impact from the labor dispute.

"The lockout didn't really hit us ? we only import smoked meats from the US," said Chen Pei-yi (陳佩儀), an executive at Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill on Taipei's Tunhua N. Road.

She added that with the economy still in the doldrums and consumers' pocketbooks tight, the consumption of premium imported food is on the decline.

The nation's largest fast-food company, McDonald's Tai-wan, also said most of its beef is imported from Australia so it is insulated from the port labor dispute.

"We only import French fries and apple pies from the US, and McDonald's has already rerouted shipments from the West Coast to other US ports," said Ronnie Liao (廖幸安), public relations manager of McDonald's Taiwan.

See story:
Judge orders West Coast ports open

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