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NORWOOD, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The latest symptom of a broken supply chain could take away your breakfast. The looming possibility of a cream cheese shortage is affecting Massachusetts, especially at restaurants. Perry Makarios, the owner of SPoT! Bagel in Norwood, said the restaurant usually goes through 1,500 pounds of the stuff in an average week. He said his suppliers recently began giving him unfilled orders.
"Every week we were ordering our cream cheese block, and it was short 200 pounds, short 300 pounds, short 500 pounds, so finally one week I just said, 'we don't have any,'" Makarios said.
Consumption of cream cheese across the United States was already rising in the last several years. Makarios said when he scrambled to find another distributor for cream cheese, they were charging 40% more for the same product.
He said his customers have been okay switching over to breakfast sandwiches, and he's grateful for the business, but it's hard to run the store this way. Despite the ubiquity of cream cheese in his shop, Makarios said bagel stores aren't even the worst hit.
"The majority of the cream cheese in the United States is not used on bagels, it's used for crab rangoons. So the Chinese food restaurants are going crazy," he said. Makarios is starting to hoard his supplies until further notice.
WBZ's Chris Fama (@CFamaWBZ) has more:
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