How a Cream Cheese Shortage Is Affecting NYC Bagel Shops (nytimes.com) 78
Supply chain issues have plagued the United States for months, causing scarcities of everything from cars to running shoes. In Alaska, residents are struggling to acquire winter coats. Now, New York's bagel purveyors are starting to feel the effects in a sudden and surprising development that has left them scrambling to find and hoard as much cream cheese as they can. From a report: Scott Goldshine, the general manager at Zabar's, estimated on Friday that he had enough to last 10 days. "Begging is one of my plans, which I have done, and it's helped," Mr. Goldshine said, adding that he had called about eight distributors in recent days. "If anybody's got it, let them call me." New York bagel sellers go through thousands of pounds of cream cheese every few weeks. The recipe for the beloved spread, which according to the Kraft Heinz Company originated in New York sometime in the 1870s, is fairly simple: lactic acid, pasteurized milk and cream. Many shops start their mixes with Philadelphia cream cheese, a Kraft Heinz brand, which arrives on huge pallets.
The pallets are not filled with the Philadelphia cream cheese found on most grocery store shelves: The raw product that comes to bagel shops is unprocessed and unwhipped, said bagel makers, who use it as a base for their own creations. Without that base, they said, the spreads just won't taste or feel the same, and customers will notice. But for about three weeks now, dairy suppliers said, the cream cheese orders they have placed with manufacturers have come up short. "I've never been out of cream cheese for 30 years," said Joseph Yemma, the owner of F&H Dairies in Brooklyn, a dairy product distributor for many of the city's bagel shops. "There's no end in sight." In interviews with owners and workers at about 20 bagel shops and delis across the city, many said they were frazzled, frustrated and rushing to find cream cheese after learning about the shortage in the past few days.
The pallets are not filled with the Philadelphia cream cheese found on most grocery store shelves: The raw product that comes to bagel shops is unprocessed and unwhipped, said bagel makers, who use it as a base for their own creations. Without that base, they said, the spreads just won't taste or feel the same, and customers will notice. But for about three weeks now, dairy suppliers said, the cream cheese orders they have placed with manufacturers have come up short. "I've never been out of cream cheese for 30 years," said Joseph Yemma, the owner of F&H Dairies in Brooklyn, a dairy product distributor for many of the city's bagel shops. "There's no end in sight." In interviews with owners and workers at about 20 bagel shops and delis across the city, many said they were frazzled, frustrated and rushing to find cream cheese after learning about the shortage in the past few days.
News for Nerds ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is dead, we're now whatever CNN puts up on their 2 min news bites.
Re:News for Nerds ? (Score:5, Informative)
There are possibly some supply chain nerds here. Or dairy nerds? Where I went to school you could major in dairy science.
Re:News for Nerds ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was a dairy farmer for a number of years while I dabbled in computers before making the leap from hobby 'puter futzer to professional programmer. Sometimes dairy related stories are interesting. But in this particular case it's just a repetition of every story we've seen about every supply chain issue that just happens to have some dairy related terms tossed in the mix.
I'd be far more interesting in finding out what the current state of automated milking machines is. Those things always fascinated me. And since I was part of the transition from stanchion barn with milk "pots" you hung off the cows back to a parler (sunken pit) milking room with fully hose based cow-to-tank systems, I'm sure the latest milkers are probably something I can't even wrap my head around. THAT would be something that would appeal to my inner dairy nerd.
Re:News for Nerds ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Fully automated milking (VMS voluntary milking I think) has been around for a couple decades.
Bought a mini horse from a dairy farmer. His setup was impressive with health and hygiene items built in. The cattle learn pretty quickly how to use the equipment. Included rotating swinging cow brushes, kinda like an automated vehicle wash 'cept it's for cows.
Clean, shiny cows.
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Dairy cattle are surprisingly intelligent creatures and easy to train for things. We had automated bug repellent applicators back in the day that they girls loved to use on a fairly regular basis, and some of them were smart enough to realize if they tapped on the feeder tube just right they'd get an extra helping of the high protein food shot we fed them while we milked them. I can imagine the auto-equipment now is a real treat compared to the way we used to have to do things.
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They were a young couple starting from scratch. Big investment but they had it worked out; this was pre-covid so I don't know how they have fared since. I don't think dairy has been hurt as it is a fairly predictable commodity in Canada.
The system was very impressive and does all sorts of production and animal tracking. Reports out the ying yang on anything that can be sensed and tracked including animal health.
Manure and flies are not affected much by automation so mucking out, composting and pest co
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Everything domestic, including dairy, should be running just fine.
There are freight shortages in the US; lack of truckers and lack of truck chassis.
Dairy products move by refrigerated truck.
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A flow-on reduced demand for smoked salmon could see fisheries struggle?
Anyhow, the next time an American reader bemoans the presence of international news such as Barbados becoming a republic, I'll be sure to remind him of the great cream cheese shortage of Hanukah 2021!
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Whatever the topic, one thing you can be certain of is there are nerds for it.
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My family member's Thai restaurant couldn't make their popular friend cream cheese wonton appetizers for about a week earlier this year. Cream cheese supply has been spotty. Now they're fine because they increased inventory.
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> There are possibly some supply chain nerds
One could make a tenuous 'nerd' connection to anything, really.
You know... (Score:5, Funny)
...I'm beginning to think the bagel industry is secretly controlled by the Jews. Very suspicious...
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I think that was humour. Chill.
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...I'm beginning to think the bagel industry is secretly controlled by the Jews.
With space lasers.
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Is dead, we're now whatever CNN puts up on their 2 min news bites.
"The chip shortage continues, making new computer purchases difficult. Also, we're out of cream cheese. "
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I can see that. Reminds me of Airplane! 2
PA announces: "Ship's crashing into the sun, too bad, so sad" (paraphrased)
*Passengers look on a little confused*
"Also, we're out of coffee."
*Cabin literally riots*
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In Slashdot's favor, there are no auto-play videos here.
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Nope! All your post has convinced me of is how much this article belongs on Slashdot.
Complaining about whether an article belongs on Slashdot or not is as old as the site itself and is the true mark of a post the belongs.
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Get off my lawn!
Hey, come back here with my cream cheese!!!
Nerds gotta eat too (Score:2)
What nerd doesn't love a good bagel and shmear?
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Is dead, we're now whatever CNN puts up on their 2 min news bites.
Logistics is a nerd topic, except for nerd posers.
Geek spin: bitcoin impact (Score:2)
"Without cream cheese our Bitcoin miners run at lower efficiency," said Bobby Dime, Head of Operations at BitCounters LTD. "We're losing $52 million a day without that cream cheese. We use it as bit lubricant - there's nothing else like it."
Who fucking cares? (Score:1)
How do you mod down a story? This nonsense doesn't belong here.
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That's needed to balance out all the neckbearded gamergaters in the comments.
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Well, it demonstrates that not every supply chain problem can be solved by "bringing manufacturing back to the US".
Cream Cheese (Score:3, Interesting)
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And now I'm seeing a conspiracy theory movie made out of the Dog Playing Poker dude taking down the cream cheese industry through some ancient curse he unleashed in the Philadelphia cream cheese factory.
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No, it isn't. It was made in NY, but named after Philadelphia, PA, because Philly had a reputation for high quality dairy products.
OMG (Score:1)
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Actually, it probably *IS* significantly important as a tech topic, but the story didn't cover those details. It's hinted at by the comment about shortages of running shoes and winter coats.
I *suspect* that this is mediated by online action of folks using technlogy of some sort to corner the market in things that previously would be too expensive to corner, with technology driving down the cost of that operation. The story didn't go into that aspect, however, so this remains just a guess.
Re:OMG (Score:4, Informative)
Having talked to farmers about this, it's mainly a problem of dairy farmers not finding enough truck drivers.
Re:OMG (Score:4, Interesting)
So why a shortage of cream cheese and not milk then?
The original recipes for cream cheese simply called for whole milk, cream, and lactobacillus culture. These days I think some producers just add lactic acid to milk as a curdling agent, so if there were a shortage of *that* that would explain a shortage of cream cheese in general.
Food is made by cooking, and cooking is simply applied chemistry. So contrary to the inevitable complainers the shortage of cream cheese *is* a question for nerds to ponder.
No milk to be found in some cities (Score:3)
There *is* a milk shortage. No milk to be found in Denver, for example.
25% of the tank trucks that normally carry milk sit parked with no drivers. Dairies have also had to curtail production (bottling etc) due to the labor shortage.
Turns out there is indeed no free lunch. We've seen this before when other countries have tried these policies, for some reason some people think the US is immune to the basic rules of economics.
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It takes tons of milk to make a small amount of cheese. If you don't get enough milk shipped, very little of it is going to make it into cream cheese. It will be sold as milk. Aged cheeses take a lot longer to make and store longer. It could be that cheddar shortages are lagging by 9-12 months.
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I've made cheese and that's not true. You lose some volume and mass as whey, but not very much.
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It varies by type of cheese, but it takes about 10 gallons of milk to make a pound of cheese.
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But for cream cheese the it's more like 1.5 gallons/pound.
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And a gallon of milk is still over 7 lbs.
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Literally only pertinent to 1% of the NYC population
Goodness you're an idiot.
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non issue (Score:1)
Cream cheese is trivial to make with milk, cream, lemon juice and salt. Are they retarded?
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Yeah, only if the milk and cream get to you from the dairy farms, the lemon gets to you from where the citrus is grown, and the salt gets to you from where it was produced.
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There are no shortages of those things in New York City, nor here in Midwest for that matter. We buy and use all that stuff in my home. There is no problem getting ingredients for making cream cheese, ice cream, pies, pizzas... except overindulgence.
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you complain about people not trying something while calling something you haven't tried "vile"
bless your heart
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you complain about people not trying something while calling something you haven't tried "vile" bless your heart
I have tried it. It's vile. I didn't complain about people not trying something. I said they wouldn't like it if they try it. Could you be any more wrong?
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could be be a little bit more of a snotty asshole?
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The proper way to respond to a correction after you've put words in someone's mouth is "sorry", "oops", or at least silence. Not to call them an asshole. Even if you don't like their tone.
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I've had a lot of different American cream cheeses, and Philadelphia used to be among the best but is now not quite what it used to be. It's shifted more towards tangy from creamy. I'm using Hahn's now. I presume they've done something to Philly to improve shelf life.
Calling it vile seems a bit hyperbolic, however.
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I have not had that many cream cheeses. I am happy with Philadelphia. I'm a bad judge, though, since I substitute greek yogurt for sour cream, and I substitute heavily strained greek yogurt for cream cheese. (In recipes only--never on bagels!)
If someone thinks it's vile, I wonder if they are detecting butyric acid, or if they tasted butyric acid in a batch they tried. Butyric acid does result from the breakdown of milk, and I've used butter that left a distinct hint of butyric odor on the skin that touched
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Cook and strain the real stuff from recipe with the ingredients I posted, without the stabilizing/thickening bean gum Philadelphia has to mix in to get the month plus shelf life. You'll taste the vileness then. The real stuff has to be used within about 10 days.
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Apparently, this is Philadelphia cream cheese (made by Kraft?) which is vile.
As if eating bread soaked in water isn't bad enough.
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"Pasteurized milk and cream, cheese culture, salt, carob bean gum."
That's it.
The Mexican neufchatel cheese tastes about the same.
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That gum just used as a thickening and stabilizing agent for what would otherwise go soft and watery with storage. You don't need it for homemade. I'm proposing the bakery cook and strain it, put into fridge to be used up in less than couple weeks. Just like my grandparents did it. Will taste better than Philadelphia's, you'll be tasting that gum when you go back to commercial.
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You don't need it for homemade.
Or if you do, just use a little tapioca flour.
Not sure if this is true... (Score:5, Funny)
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It will be soon enough, nobody is going to eat that... stuff without any cream cheese.
Make you own (Score:2)
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I tried to talk the restaurant into making their own spring roll wrappers when the wholesaler ran out, and they pointed out that they, too, have a labor shortage right now...
Capitalism my donkey (Score:2)
So, let me get this straight. An entire U.S.A. state is short of cream cheese.
With bagel shoppes on every corner.
And there isn't any small business in all of New York City who's decided to start cooking?
We're literally talking about a culture (ha!) that's been around for hundreds of years in impoverished communities.
Has New York deported all of its grandmothers?
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Having just read the article, there's more. Alaskans can't get winter coats. It's winter right now, so shoot something. There's your coat.
The article explains, quite clearly, that nearly all of these pandemic supply-chain issues are exactly there -- in the "chain". It's the truck drivers. It's the packaging materials.
Maybe, just maybe, you could manufacture things other than trucking companies.