While it took some time for the ongoing logistical issues to fully impact California’s dairy industry, the supply chain disruptions are now taking their toll. CEO of Western United Dairies, Anja Raudabaugh said some of the export market opportunities are eroding due to delays. International customers are looking to places like New Zealand for dairy products because of the unreliability of exports leaving the United States.
“This is like a death knell in the markets that we’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars if not more trying to open after NAFTA which were renegotiated recently through USMCA,” Raudabaugh noted. “We’re resorting to extraordinary measures right now like airfreight to assure that our customers get their products. One of our cheese manufacturers reported that over 99 percent of their 2021 ocean shipments had been cancelled. So, all of those things create a supply and demand bottleneck, for which the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is of course betting on. If the supply reads high, because we have all this stuff in storage, then eventually that pushes down the price.”
Listen to the radio report below.
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