ERMA – Supply chain problems have impacted businesses globally and Cape May County has been no exception. Across all sectors of business, and in various ways, delays, and price increases, driven by breakdowns in the supply chain, have forced business owners into tough decisions and upped their stress in what has already been a brutal 21 months since the pandemic hit.
Here is a firsthand look at how some county businesses were impacted.
Cellular Tracking Technologies
In a 1-year-old building, modeled with a plane-hangar vibe in mind, Cellular Tracking Technologies’ headquarters at the Cape May County Airport was bustling with activity on a December afternoon.
The company, which sells innovative tracking equipment for wildlife, has expanded to over 25 employees and a larger office space, as it continues to grow.
The trackers, which often weigh less than a paper clip, continuously collect position data using GPS and other sensors. Once a day, or however often it is configured to, it will upload the data when it is near a cell tower. If it is not in range of a cell tower, it will continue to store the data and then dump it off the next time it is.
The company has built a long list of repeat clients from around the world.
For co-founder Michael Lanzone and his business partner and company co-founder Casey Halverson, it’s been a year of coming up with creative solutions to problems posed by a disruption in the supply chain.
After weathering the initial worry brought by a sudden drop in orders after Covid hit the U.S. in March 2020, thanks to Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money and orders resuming, came a second shot.
“The crazy thing is, when things started to pick up again, the supply chain came right after that. There was not like a special PPP for supply-chain-impacted businesses, and, arguably, it’s almost worse now. The only difference is now we’re getting orders,” Lanzone said, “but we’re having to spend five to 10 times more per device to get it manufactured.”
One GPS chip that Cellular Tracking Technologies uses on its SensorStation product, a receiver to collect data from tracking devices, became unavailable for 52 weeks, Halverson said. The company had to creatively find a way to design something else to perform the chip’s function, so it could continue to manufacture and sell the $689 product.
In addition to delays in getting shipments, there have also been considerable and unpredictable price increases for different products.
Lanzone said it rubs him the wrong way when acting as a buyer and a manufacturer comes back to him after an order has been placed and says the product now costs more money, so the company has tried to avoid that practice and absorb a cost increase in materials to honor the price it offered its customer.
“You want to retain customer base. Even if you’re not making money but you’re more or less staying even or losing slightly, you’re hoping it’s going to rebound, and when it does, you’re going to retain that customer base. That’s a decision you have to make on a case-by-case basis,” Lanzone said.
Eldon Builders
Stone Harbor-based Eldon Builders has been building custom homes and overseeing home renovations since the late 1970s.
Nate Eldon, the company’s owner, said one of the biggest challenges for him with the supply chain has been estimating projects, with so much volatility in the price of materials.
He said the company took a hit on some projects he estimated for clients, where the price of construction was dramatically increased due to material price increases.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have some customers be a bit understanding, but I’ve certainly taken a few shots to the jaw,” Eldon said. “I’ve started being very clear with my clients, in that I can’t honor prices a long way out. There are just too many variables in the market right now, regarding building material costs. There’s absolutely no stability.”
Subcontractors have expressed that they’re having problems with products from overseas, but raw materials from the U.S. have also been hard to come by and more expensive, Eldon said. Engineered lumber has been a problem due to resins that are used to produce a lot of the beams and plywood.
“I think we have trucking problems. I think we’ve got labor shortage issues across the board. I think we’ve got this Covid scenario where say something’s produced and it’s pretty labor-intensive in terms of a mill where they need people to operate machinery and stuff like that. My guess is they start losing people due to Covid and the cogs on the wheel slowly grind down to a halt,” Eldon said.
Investment in coastal real estate has been extremely hot in recent years and along with the investment in the land, many new owners are building custom homes on their properties. Driving around Avalon and Stone Harbor, it often seems like there are multiple new houses being built on every block.
“You have a couple of factors here. You have the factor of Covid and factory shutdowns. Fewer workers, fewer people in the trades in general, whether they’re on the building end or the manufacturing end. Then you have this red-hot budling economy. Without Covid, it would be hard for these manufacturers to keep up. My assumption is they’re doing an extreme volume of work.”
Eldon said his company has been navigating the problem by getting organized and planning ahead with ordering. He said appliances have been hard to come by and that’s one area he’s needed to make sure they get orders in with plenty of time to spare.
In addition to the realities of supply and demand, Eldon thinks some of the price increases may have a more nefarious origin.
“Another driver here, there’s an old adage in business of never let a tragedy go to waste. I think there’s certainly some price increase that are just based on opportunist profiteers.”
Via Mare
Mario Perricci is the chef at Via Mare, an Italian staple in Avalon since 1963. Founded by his late father, Vito, an Italian immigrant, and former Atlantic City casino chef, Perricci grew up in the restaurant business, working alongside Vito, his mother Giulia, and his brother.
Perricci said supply chain problems caused price increases that he had to absorb and forced him to search for other purveyors when his usual suppliers were out of what he needed. Even local vendors, which Perricci said he prefers to buy from, were having problems keeping products available.
He said food quality is sometimes not what he expects, which he has to be careful of, and he had to order way in advance. Sometimes he had to get creative and substitute ingredients.
“I couldn’t get the right stuff to make my brown sauce, so I had to play with other stuff. I had to figure it out but figuring it out takes a week. You have to make it taste the same, otherwise, people will complain,” Perricci said.
The price of jumbo lump crab meat more than doubled over the summer, according to Perricci. He said he didn’t want to change the prices or offer a lower quality crab meat, so he had to limit the crab he served when people added it to their entrée since the price increase accounted for his entire margin.
On other menu items, like veal, Perricci refuses to slash portions and took it on the chin when prices for the meat went up.
Although he said he’s gotten pretty good at ordering over the years, he said he had heard horror stories of other restaurants who ordered too much of the wrong thing way in advance due to fears if they waited too long to order, it wouldn’t get to them in time.
It’s hard, especially for BYOB’s like Via Mare, when prices increase, considering all the overhead and none of the potential to make money on liquor, which often yields wider margins than food and has a longer shelf-life, according to Perricci.
“People don’t think about that at all,” Perricci said. “You make so much money off the booze.”
To contact Shay Roddy, email sroddy@cmcherald.com.
