Cream cheese shortage may be due to lack of labor and other supply-chain issues – The Washington Post

A schmear shortage has befallen the United States in recent weeks, albeit unevenly. In New York City, bagel shops report being hit particularly hard, with some scaling back usually hefty dollops slapped on cinnamon raisin and sesame. The restaurant chain Junior’s recently halted production of its classic New York-style cheesecake three times amid the shortage. Nonetheless, many grocery stores seem to have plenty of supply.Jenna Thornton, a spokeswoman for Kraft, also disputed the water usage theory, pointing instead to strong retail demand — up 18 percent from 2019, though steady over the last year. She attributed the rise to an increase in the number of people eating breakfast at home and making easy desserts like cheesecake. Demand from bagel shops and other food providers has risen even more sharply, up 75 percent compared with a year ago.The average person in the country has eaten cream cheese roughly once a month for the past few years — primarily at breakfast, said Darren Seifer, a food and beverage industry analyst at the NPD Group, a market research company. He is skeptical that an increase in demand alone explains the shortage, noting that the splurge on comfort foods during the days of strict lockdown in early 2020 has waned as more people slip out of joggers and back into work pants.Restaurants and takeout companies, however, are another story. At Junior’s, sales are up 44 percent from last year, when many of the other restaurants that sell the brand’s famous cheesecakes were closed, owner Alan Rosen said. The company’s grocery and mail-order businesses have also grown, he said.