Meat, freezer purchases recovering from virus affect

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a dire effect on an all-but-forgotten aspect of family life: kitchen appliances. Because people are spending more time at home, they are putting more of a burden on their appliances, and when they break down, they may not be very easy to repair or replace.

According to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturing, factories around the country only now are recovering from the pandemic-related factory closings that caused a 7% decline in production through June of this year.

Don Finley of John’s Sale and Service in Oglesby said that while many of those manufacturers have retooled to accommodate social distancing, some workers chose not to return, leaving them understaffed. The places that have fully reopened aren’t producing as much, for a lack of parts manufactured by their suppliers.

That’s created a shortage of appliances, especially in freezers that are on every homebound family’s wishlist.

“We’ve been pretty busy because we do have a pretty good stock, and it’s always the first question they ask: ‘What do you have in stock?’ ” said Finley. “It’s tough.

“Since May, whatever comes in goes out right away. … I haven’t had an upright in maybe two or three months, and we’re just starting to get chest freezers back in now. I have a list of 42 people who are looking for freezers. We’re all in the same boat, the dealers. These things are just tough to get.

“And it’s not just them. It’s all appliances, to be honest. They’re starting to trickle back in a little now, but I have 100-and-some pieces back-ordered since March. It is brutal.”

Restrictions on freezers being imported from foreign countries have also put a kink in the supply chain, Corey Christoff of Christoff Appliances in Streator said. The last two of the most common “bread-and-butter” freezer everyone wants, the 17-cubic-foot upright, that Christoff sold were way back in March, and those people drove 90 miles one way just to pick them up.

“They’re just starting to come in the doors now, where a month or so ago, there were really none to be had,” said Christoff. “We literally didn’t see a freezer for four months – say, March through July and into August – during the pandemic, and I have a long list of people to call now that they’ve started breaking out the last six to eight weeks or so.

“Most people would say that they were looking for one so they could buy meats in bulk and wouldn’t have to put on the mask to run out to the store every third day or so. I can certainly understand that.”

For those who already have freezers, whether new, repaired or otherwise, there may still be a bit of a wait for something to put in it.

Grubar’s Meat Processing in North Utica does not sell meat; it only processes what’s brought to them, and they are seeing record numbers of requests for their work since the end of March.

“Business is definitely picking up for us,” owner/operator Jeff Grubar said. “There aren’t as many butchers around the area as there used to be, so we’re pretty busy. We’ve gone from maybe 12 [sides of beef] to like 17 or 18.

“Our limitation is our size. We can only do so many beef and pork at a time, so we do have a waiting list. It’s going to be February or March before I get everybody worked in, and the list keeps growing.

“We’ve never had a demand like this in all our lives. There are farmers out there who are glad to sell it, but they can’t get it butchered. If I could do more, I would, but I just can’t.”

Kelsey Stash, one of the owners of the Wyanet Locker in Wyanet, acknowledges that this is the time of year when people usually stock up on meats for the winter, but the business has only recently caught up on the two-month backlog of orders created in April and May.

“It’s that time of the year when people are loading up on the bundle boxes, the variety packs so they can have their freezers full for the winter, but many of them are doing it because of COVID, too, they’re telling us,” Stash said.

“In the beginning [of the pandemic], there were a lot of new people, but now it’s going back to the regular, everyday customers with a few coming in because of the pandemic. They heard, “Hey, this place can actually get you meat,’ because we had it, when, for a while, other places didn’t.

“We’re probably doing 25 to 30% more in sales alone than we usually do, which includes more people ordering half a beef and things like that. … It’s been pretty crazy, but we’re doing well now.”