Supply Chain Conclusion Jan 24

California AG today, I'm Mike Stephens, we conclude speaking with Carolyn Stringer, Trade Director for the California Fresh Fruit Association. She concludes with an optimism of supply chain problems subsiding by mid-summer.

Essentially, the consumers have changed the way that they spend their money, and we're all spending it on like Amazon Prime Days and home improvement and new couches because we're spending more time at home, right? So we want our homes to be more comfortable, and many of those things are coming from across the ocean and that's where the demand for inbound cargo is coming from. And so once we can get back to going out to restaurants and going to plays and concerts and spending our disposable income on those things, then the thought is that there will be less pressure on the ports with respect to imported goods. From what I'm hearing, all the quote experts keep saying, we see this improving and pressure alleviating by mid-summer. That's the projection. It could be pushed out if things don't change and we continue to have more and more COVID outbreaks that keep people home. But as far as I can tell that the goal in Sacramento and in D.C. and in other countries is not to have more lockdowns. So hopefully as conditions improve in terms of COVID, life goes back to pre-COVID as closely as it can. And then we'll see the shift in the way goods are moved in and out of the country.