Pet owners search for pet food amid shortage

The supply chain crisis has created a shortage of pet food, with up to 40% of pet food out of stock.

影片文字轉錄稿

DAVE BRIGGS: The dog food shelves are empty. They are wiped out. And you're starting to see reports of this shortage across the country. It's transportation, its raw materials, it's the labor shortage, and it's impacting our pets. Some stores saying up to 40% of pet food is out of stock. You're hearing some stores discontinue some types of pet food.

And just anecdotally, a lot of people like my own dog have specialty diets that their dogs have to follow for their sensitive stomachs. And they are wiped out of that, leaving, Emily, a lot of hungry dogs across the country. Oh, there is my dog, Cooper. He has a finicky stomach, like his dad. But this is a real important issue across the country. And again, nowhere to turn, nothing to do except wait.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Absolutely, Dave. And as you point out, the issue isn't just the fact that we're seeing shortages of the raw food products that go into pet food, but it's also the fact that we're seeing rising prices, supply chain issues for the packaging, like aluminum, for instance, and these other commodity prices. Now one other thing I'll point out, is that as recently as March, we had the online pet product company Chewy, that's that online pet retailer, saying that it expected between $200 and $300 million of sales lost this full fiscal year due to out of stocks for 2022.

Again, due to those supply chain disruptions and inventory shortages. So we did have some signs of this just as recently as a couple of months ago that this was going to be in the pipeline here. We're really seeing all of this come to a head. And the last thing I'll point out, is that all of this is also, of course, translating into higher prices. We saw in this week's CPI report for April that pet food was up 1.2% month on month. That was after a 2.3% monthly increase in March. So seeing all of this really impacting not just baby formula, not just pet food, but again, speaking to the inflation that we're seeing across the country, Rachelle.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: We have to remember, we're coming off of the heels of a pandemic, where we saw more than 23 million American households, that's one in five nationwide, adopting pets during the pandemic. That's according to the ASPCA. And we even heard from Hal Lawton, the CEO of Tractor Supply, which supplies some of these stores, and he said that people started stockpiling pet food, which put added strain on supply chains.

Now pet food sales at supermarkets grew 6.9% over the past 52 weeks ending in November. That's versus 2.3% for food overall, according to research from firm Nielsen IQ. So a lot of different factors converging all at once.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Yeah--

DAVE BRIGGS: What's your dog's name there?

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Mine? Milo.

[LAUGHS]

DAVE BRIGGS: That's your sweet Milo we're looking at.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: He's named after the chocolate drink. He's named after the chocolate drink, because I love chocolate.

DAVE BRIGGS: What chocolate drink?

RACHELLE AKUFFO: There's a chocolate drink called Milo! Have you never heard of it?

DAVE BRIGGS: I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never heard of that.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: It brings me joy, which is why I named him Milo.

EMILY MCCORMICK: That's the important thing.

DAVE BRIGGS: Emily, have you heard of it?

EMILY MCCORMICK: I haven't heard of it either, but I have to say, I love seeing the pictures of your pets, you guys. I'm feeling a little bit left out, but one of these days I'm certainly going to be getting one myself.