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Cincinnati-Toncia Chavez carefully stacks vegetables on the display rack of her ETC Produce and Provisions store in Findlay Market.

There are big carrots, dark purple beets, small lettuce heads and various peppers. Chavez said they usually carry the "complete traffic lights" of bell peppers-red, yellow and green-but currently only the yellow varieties are available.

The stalls at the Over-the-Rhine market are very small, only about 600 square feet. However, there is plenty of room for most locally grown agricultural products and a range of regional handicrafts, from applesauce to brownies to small batches of soy sauce.

Like Chavez, vendors and stores across the country are experiencing similar supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In recent weeks, one of ETC's difficult to track items is Candy Apple. Her usual suppliers provide Chavez with other Carmel products-handmade caramel candies and caramel dips. But Apple’s arrival time is much longer than usual.

Getting apples is not a problem; they are in the season and grow throughout the region. The problem is the packaging, in this case a transparent container with separate slots for four apples; each slot has a hole in the top.

"I placed an order on Monday. On Wednesday, she sent me a text message saying,'Hey, I'm still waiting for packaging. I ordered last week, but they haven't arrived yet.' She texted me again on Friday— It was still unpacked, and it was the same on Monday," Chavez recalled. 

The Indiana-based supplier did not receive the required packaging until next Wednesday (two weeks after Chavez placed the order).

"So, those apples are now two weeks old and I can't use them. It's not fair to me. She has to make fresh apples," she said. "She has to bear the cost, and I have no products to sell."

Although the cost of many foods (especially beef, pork, and poultry) has increased, the prices of the materials needed to package them for sale or transportation are also rising.

Companies that make items such as takeaway boxes and plastic storage boxes have to pay more for soaring material costs. They are also dealing with issues related to transportation and national labor challenges, both of which are reducing product delivery capabilities.

Chavez said that any packaging — plastic packaging, egg cartons, plastic containers, glass jars with lids, etc. — had "prices tripled" in the last month.

Chavez did not want to delve into the specific numbers, but Chavez said that ETC now spends "more" on packaging than in the past few years. For example, a box of 500 cooked food containers used to cost approximately $67. The current price of the same box is about $120.

They will last for a week or two.

"Every time I go to order plastic cooked food (containers), there seems to be a problem. Sometimes they are the wrong size, or sometimes they have the size I want, but they won't have a lid. The lid has not been available for three weeks. Now," she said. "I don't know what we should do when the lid runs out."

Limited supply and increased demand have also led to soaring supply prices.

Although this problem affects retailers of all sizes, it is particularly challenging for ETC and the 50 or so other companies that use Findlay Market as their home.

"We buy these things online. As small business owners, we can't buy 50,000 items. We buy 100 at a time. Therefore, not only are our prices rising, but the scarcity of products is also becoming more and more absurd," Chavey Said.

Chavez said she knows that everyone is now financially struggling. She asked shoppers to try and understand that any potential price increase they are now experiencing is not for "getting rich."

Chavez said that ETC's profit margins are "mean." This money is used for rent, salary, office expenses and other operating expenses, such as paying for their credit card expenses.

She added: “We ask customers to forgive and understand the situation.” “If you see a small business’s price increase, it’s not because we want to buy a Mercedes. We just want to make sure that our (employees) are next week Can get a salary."

Chavez said that food is not a problem, especially for companies like hers. She grows some of the products she sells on her family farm, located in Felicity, Ohio, covering 68 acres, about 40 minutes' drive from Findlay Market. 

They grow micro-vegetables throughout the year and papaya in the fall. In summer, they have a mixture of zucchini and various lettuce. They also have more than 400 cage-free chickens that can lay eggs.

She lives on the farm with her husband Esteban and their two children (a 3 year old and a newborn). Estevan manages the farm, while Chavez handles daily affairs in the store.

"He is the best farmer I have," Chavez said of her husband with a wry smile. Even jokingly, this is a high praise from Chavez. ETC relies on many other farmers and artisans in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana to fill out their catalogs.

They also get some products from Georgia and Tennessee. They buy out-of-season organic food from Florida and California. But Chavez said most commodities are fresh from the farm, which means they come from no more than two hours away. ETC grows and purchases more than 90% of the food and products they sell from local producers.

Chavez said that relying on his own products helped avoid many of the supply problems that other companies encountered during the pandemic.

ETC orders surged - from about 45 a week to more than 600 at the peak of the pandemic. With the children, the Chavez family completed all the deliveries within a few weeks. 

They increased their staff from 4 to 14 to help them keep up with demand. They brought in the people who had been fired-a tattoo artist, several restaurant staff. The first is the logo maker. ETC pays them an hourly wage every week, plus a bag of food to take home.

Nevertheless, about 30% of their business is delivery, all of which require additional packaging.

"We are fortunate to have all kinds of excellent local farmers and artisans. But they are the ones who feel crunch. It really has to do with packaging because most of the things they make or grow themselves," she said.

Makers Bakers Co., two stalls from ETC, is an artisanal bakery that has been unable to find a specific type of container to supply their products for several weeks. They decided to switch from the existing translucent packaging to a more opaque packaging.

Makers Bakers specializes in handmade cheesecakes, custom cakes and biscuits. One of their signature items is cinnamon rolls. They have been selling products at Findlay Market for several years, but only moved into a booth more than a year ago.

"Nothing special. We can't get it right now," said owner Kevin Foston. He added that although his customers don't seem to mind, it can be stressful when he tries to build a new brand.

"We are trying to invest in branding and packaging to really build a relationship with our customer base, and now we find ourselves injecting new packaging into the portfolio to ensure that we can get the scale and quantity needed to start our business," Foston said.

Earlier this spring, after an oil tanker turned sideways and blocked the Suez Canal, an important trade route, Foston began to hear rumors about supply chain issues. This channel connects manufacturers and suppliers in Asia with major consumer markets around the world.

He said he had never seen such a price increase or inflation before. Commodity prices sometimes change several times a week.

"It's not just tankers. There have been several forest fires that have caused devastating losses in fruit production. It is difficult for us to find blueberries. Just recently, we have not been able to buy heavy cream, cream cheese and cheesecake. Is one of our best-selling products," he said.

Foston said that he almost laughed at how "crazy" this situation has become.

He said that as an emerging business, strong performance during major holidays is crucial. Not just to make money, but to build relationships with customers. He said he has received a large number of orders for fruit tarts and apple pie.

"There will definitely be some panic and pressure, wondering how we will ensure that we can take care of our customers," he said. "We want to make sure that we can satisfy our customers with the highest possible quality, and this unstable availability is terrible."

One of the reasons Findlay Market has survived the pandemic is its customers; a mix of ordinary grocery shoppers and tourists who see the market as a year-round destination. Another reason is the suppliers themselves, they work together as a community.

Foston said that the respective business owners also had a conversation about their supply needs and looked for ways to share resources when and where possible. Since they are all struggling to find the lowest quantity and lowest cost supplies, they will work together and share.

"It's like,'Hey, can you find this this week? I found this. I found this.' Instead of buying one or two things, I'm going to buy three-one for the store and one for the farm , One for the company," Chavez said. "We have friends and business owners, they are all in the same situation, which is really great."

She attributed Findlay Market, which operates the market, to finding ways to support local businesses amidst the economic difficulties caused by the pandemic.

John Bird, director of market management and operations at Findlay Market, said that this is currently a challenge for some businesses. 

He said: "You can go to the same company every Wednesday to make pre-made food for a month, and almost every time you receive items in different take-out containers. They have to do this." Adjust based on what is available. . "

Bird says one way the market does this is to provide overflow storage that its merchants can use on a "lender" basis. This includes the use of refrigerated trucks. The goal is to enable them to buy more products in bulk and reduce some installation and management costs.

"Our goal and mission is to help and support small entrepreneurs so that they can start, grow and expand in the market," he said.

Bird described the market as a "collaborative ecosystem." He added that they are looking for more opportunities to help suppliers cooperate to reduce their respective management costs.

"It's amazing to see how different businesses support and cooperate with each other. If you simply share and help each other provide some storage space, you can turn each other's ideas into a kind of conversation store," he said.