A Cat Food Shortage In Fairfield? Local Industry Expert Explains

FAIRFIELD, CT — When Fairfield Patch asked readers if they’d noticed any items missing from store shelves recently, they had one answer: cat food.

Canned cat food in particular has become hard to find, some said. At least one reader was forgoing brick-and-mortar stores for online retailers.

“Ordering from Chewy lately,” Kimberly Hein wrote in a Facebook comment.

With the fast-spreading omicron coronavirus variant, severe winter weather and ongoing supply chain and labor issues, shoppers are struggling to find grocery staples such as chicken breasts and cream cheese, Patch reported this week. But is there really a cat food shortage?

“It is a real thing,” confirmed Adam Jacobson, a Fairfield resident and executive vice president of Pet Pantry Warehouse, which operates seven stores in Fairfield and Westchester counties.

It’s not just cat food, he said. Manufacturing has been disrupted for every type of product in the pet retail sector, according to Jacobson, who cited shortages of labor, materials and packaging, as well as shipping delays. Recently, Pet Pantry Warehouse has been receiving about half the products it orders each week, he said.

“It’s really just an absolute supply chain shortage,” Jacobson said.

Many cat food products come overseas from Thailand, which has played a role in the delay.

“It used to be weeks and now it’s months to get that product back on the shelf,” Jacobson said.

Manufacturers are also rationing materials in order to make certain products while shorting other product lines, he said, which means specific items may not be available to the extent they once were.

“I think consumers are understanding of it at this point,” said Jacobson, who anticipates the shortages will continue through 2022. “It’s really not in our control and it’s not just specific to the pet industry.”

Jacobson recommended that shoppers who are concerned about not being able to find a certain product ask pet store staff for comparable recommendations.

“This is not going away quickly,” he said.