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What’s Going On with the Supply Chain?

So, you’ve heard about these ongoing “supply chain issues.” From clogged shipping ports to labor shortages to the cost of cardboard and paper, every industry has been affected by delays and a damaged system. The truth is, we live in an increasingly connected world where all of us—from organic farmers in California to truck drivers delivering Misfits Market boxes to your doorsteps—are impacted in one way or another by the global supply chain squeeze. Misfits Market is feeling this in a big way, too.

What exactly is the supply chain?

Like its name suggests, the supply chain is a linked system that brings all goods, from raw materials to finished products, to our doorsteps. (Although the supply chain is more like a supply web or network than a straight line, with interconnected pieces that include manufacturing, shipping, economic policy, and more.) Every step of this process—sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, packaging, and transportation—represents one of the links in this chain. When one link is affected, it can mess with the entire system. A shortage of food, labor, warehouse space, or even the ability to ship goods, almost always leads to delays, even more shortages, and rising prices in another part of the supply chain.

So what’s happening with food right now?

During the pandemic, there were big shifts in the ways that we shopped for and ate our food. Many of us started cooking at home more than ever before, a trend that’s continued today. That means demand for things like fresh mushrooms, like the ones we sell at Misfits Market, has skyrocketed. Higher demand for food, paired with simultaneous labor shortages and increased prices for things like packaging and transportation, has contributed to less availability—and higher costs.

Let’s consider the mushroom—one piece of produce that’s been harder to come by over these past few months. The two biggies affecting our mushroom growers are labor shortages and higher prices for inputs.

  • Labor shortages: Prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, labor shortages have been impacting business across the country. For mushroom growers, a reduced labor force has made growing, picking, packing, and shipping mushrooms slower and more expensive. In some cases, it’s even forced growers to shut their operations down completely.
  • Higher prices for other materials: Some of the ways our mushroom growers are feeling the heat from supply chain issues are in higher costs of the materials required to produce mushrooms in the first place. Canadian peat moss, shiitake logs, and special bags that are used to grow some mushrooms have been harder to come by. As shipping ports around the world have been backed up, the cost of importing these necessary items has increased, which means shipping the finished product has become more expensive, too.

Misfits Market is affected by supply chain issues, too.

Because of our direct relationships with our farmers and other partners, we’ve been hearing about some of the challenges for quite some time. But maintaining close relationships doesn’t mean we’re immune to these global issues.

Our suppliers want to be doing what they do best: growing and producing quality foods to meet the demands of their enthusiastic customers. But in difficult times, some of our suppliers have had to increase their prices, prepare us at Misfits Market to expect shortages, or cap the amount of food they can provide us in order to prevent running through all of their available inventory.

It’s important to note that not all players are impacted equitably in this crisis. Small businesses face many more obstacles than larger corporations when it comes to solving or averting these supply chain issues. Often due to less leverage over their supply chains, smaller businesses are more vulnerable to the effects of the shortages, delays, and increased costs, and may have less capital to tide them over during these difficult times. At Misfits Market, we are committed to supporting these small businesses.

But we’re in this together.

We certainly aren’t the only ones that will be experiencing the ups and downs of these events—  the current supply chain issues have caused a ripple effect that’s being felt throughout the entire food industry and beyond. And though a lot of this is out of our control, we want to be transparent with you throughout it all. 

Our supply chain at Misfits Market is a complicated, living, breathing network of people working together day in and day out to provide high quality food at unbeatable prices, all while working to provide greater access to underserved markets and tackle waste in our food system. If you see our prices increase temporarily, or if your favorite products are a little more limited, rest assured that we’re working closely with our suppliers to ensure the best deals on rescued food. In fact, the problems with our supply chain have only made us more aware of the ways in which we are all connected. Weathering this storm together—in our case, doing our best to support our suppliers while continuing to provide high quality, affordable food to our customers—remains our key focus.

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Comments (36)

Thanks for asking, Richard! We currently aren’t sourcing any ribeye roast cuts, though we do offer ribeye steak cuts. That said, Thanksgiving week is a busy delivery time, and to help with scheduling we usually will move around delivery days a little bit (with advance notice!) to accommodate.

The best way to ensure that your food arrives to you before Thanksgiving is to make sure your delivery day is as early in the week as possible; if you have a Wednesday-Thursday delivery day, for example, it’s more likely that your order could get reassigned to after Thanksgiving.

We hope this helps, and we welcome you to share any further questions with our specialists using our contact form here: https://www.misfitsmarket.com/contact-us!

Hi, Gayle. We’re very sorry to hear you’ve had a negative experience with us. All of our valued customers are very important to us, including you, and we are working hard to make things better for everyone as quickly as possible.

We invite you to reach out to our customer support team using our contact form (http://www.misfitsmarket.com/contact-us ). They will look into making it right and use your feedback to better the Misfits Market experience.

Alternatively, we have recently optimized our customer feedback portal to offer a faster and easier way to communicate with our Customer Success team and report an item or delivery issue with a recent order. Simply go to your account page, click through to My Orders, and click Report Issue and you’ll be on your way to quick, easy assistance.

We are so sorry again for your experience but look forward to resolving this for you as soon as possible.

Thank you for all you do. Even with a few late boxes and missing items I am totally satisfied with my orders!

We’re so happy to hear you’re enjoying, Debbie! Thank you for being such an awesome member of our community. ????

I love most of the stuff I get from Misfits. As a senior on a fixed income and not wanting to go out to get things in person I love being able to order and get things delivered. I like getting what I need every two weeks.

Hi, Susan. We are so sorry to learn you haven’t received your box. We’d like for our customer success team to look into this for you. Please reach out to us using our contact form (http://www.misfitsmarket.com/contact-us ). Someone from our team will respond as soon as possible to help with this.

Thank you for this very enlightening article. It’s good to understand what goes on at all the different links in the Misfits supply community. It’s certainly more detailed than the average online selling environment for sure. Thanks again from a happy customer.

Thank you for the thorough article that explains so much about the supply chain. I work in the supply chain so my understanding is much deeper than someone that has no idea what the supply chain means. I feel this article is very helpful for the public that maybe doesn’t understand each moving piece of the supply chain. It is thorough and helps explain in layman’s terms. Thank again.

We have been a part of Misfits when we had to have our order started and submitted early. If not, we would experience sell outs of popular items. This seems no different. When you sell out, you sell out. Same thing. You will offer what is available each week, and it will be up to the buyer (as in any market) for first come first serve. Am I understanding your message correctly?

Thanks for sharing stuff like this! It’s great to get transparency on how supply chains are impacted and where sourcing comes from with the produce that I buy.

Hi, Bruce! Thank you for the question about the quality and sourcing of our products. The vast majority of our fresh produce is certified organic and non-GMO. Occasionally we may rescue responsibly grown conventional produce that we don’t want to see go to waste; all items that are organic, however, are clearly indicated on our website.
For other grocery staples and proteins, we have strict sourcing standards and work with partners who are transparent about their methods to ensure that you can feel good about what goes into the production of the goods we carry.
We’ve also hand-picked suppliers that have found innovative ways to minimize environmental impact by avoiding industrialized farming while still making high-quality products that are affordable.
Feel free to let us know if you have any questions! We appreciate your interest and would love for you to consider joining us anytime. https://www.misfitsmarket.com

Yay!! ???? We’re thrilled to hear this, Susan! We’re so glad you are making great use of your goodies. ????

We moved to a very remote area of the country and are quite far from any health food stores or fresh food markets. We order from Misfits weekly and love the food and the service! Thank you so much for all you do. Our children eat healthy because of you!

We’re so happy to have you as a part of our community, Katherine! Thank you for your kind words and continued support. ????

Thank you for taking the time to share how the supply chain issues impact MM specifically. It is helpful to have this information.

Thank you for your very comprehensive explanation of the supply chain situation. I really appreciate that you keep me informed of what’s happening – that makes me feel more like a part of the “Misfit family” and more willing to accept the glitches that may occur. Your boxes are like Christmas presents all year long! Thank you so much.

This was an excellent article about the “food Chain”. Whoever wrote did a wonderful job writing where everyone can understand what it going on. I have forwarded this on to several people. Thanks!

You guys are fantastic ! I came across Misfits last year when the pandemic started and have been using the service ever since. Very happy with the quality and the variety. It is so exciting to see you grow, looking forward to the future 😉

Yay!! This is so great to hear, Tatiana. Thank you for being such a valued member of our communtiy. ????

Loved this article. Thank u for all this info. I just signed up and haven’t yet had the opportunity to check out MM but this article has encouraged me to shop here

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