Are Supply Chain Issues Causing An Alcohol Shortage in Rochester?

Remember how weird things got during the toilet paper shortage? Fights broke out in stores, panic shopping became a thing, Facebook pages were created to notify people when items were in-stock… it was a strange time.

Since then, we’ve dealt with shortages on everything from hand sanitizer to meat because of supply chain issues, and now some places are running out of alcohol. If you think people lost their minds when they couldn’t get TP, imagine a world with no booze.

What is causing the alcohol shortage?

Eric Hoplin, president and CEO of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, told ABC News Chicago that the main issue is a staffing shortage. There’s enough alcohol - getting it into stores is the main issue.

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 Is Rochester Experiencing an Alcohol Shortage?

Bryan King from Apollo Liquor agrees that delivery is the main issue. King spoke to KIMT News and said, “It’s our distributors not being able to get product or not able to distribute it. They sometimes have it in their warehouse but they can't get it out."

Meanwhile, Andrew Powell, a clerk at Apollo, said the main delay is with imports.  Powell told Fox 47 News, “Typically it's the imports, basically anything that comes from overseas, especially stuff that has to come by ship tends to be a lot harder to get our hands on nowadays."

King told KIMT “there might be outages for a short period of time” but said his company addresses those daily to limit delays. King doesn't see this being a major issue moving forward.