Not a day goes by that we don’t hear about a shortage or out of stock.
For many people, accustomed to living in abundance and browsing supermarket shelves full to the brim, a hitherto unknown feeling has surfaced with the pandemic.
It all started with toilet paper, then sanitary and safety equipment, swimming pools and their accessories, household appliances, sporting goods and building materials.
The shortage of components used in the manufacture of electronic chips has significant repercussions on several sectors, in particular the manufacturing of automobiles.
In Lebanon, couples currently face a shortage of birth control pills and condoms. The fiery lovers are therefore returning to old methods like interrupted coitus and calculating a woman’s fertility, reported L’Orient-Le Jour at the beginning of November.
Economists parade television sets to explain how and why global businesses are being hit by the pandemic.
The entire development chain of a product, from the manufacturing plant to the consumer fair, including the stage of its transport, has been reached.
But what consumers remember at the end of the day is that they end up footing the bill.
It is then normal that he asks himself questions and that he throws from time to time (as I do) liberating sentences of the kind: “Seems to me that the pandemic has a broad back. ”
I listen to the explanations of the experts and find that sometimes they are filled with common sense, sometimes difficult to swallow.
An imbalance between supply and demand, consumers emerging from a pandemic with the desire to spend, products increasingly assembled in spare parts in various countries, reasons peripheral to the pandemic (new environmental realities), all this leads me to understand and better accept this phenomenon
Still …
I became more suspicious. When I heard that fir trees could become the toilet paper at the start of the pandemic, I was startled. And I strained my ears.
I have heard about the scarcity of labor, producers who have retired without being able to take over, difficult weather conditions in the United States and Western Canada which mean that Quebec trees are in greater demand. .
We also mentioned the spring frosts and droughts of last summer which particularly affected the Beauce and Estrie regions, where 50% of Quebec production is cultivated. These conditions would have caused the ends of the trees to turn brown.
There, I admit that I was lost. If Quebec produces fewer trees, how can it export more?
Normally, producers establish agreements with wholesalers or retailers in June. In September, we can still accept orders. Not this year. No more trees were available. Never seen.
Before buying an artificial tree with built-in flashing lights, I made a phone call to the Quebec Christmas Tree Producers Association (APANQ).
Its vice-president had a lot to say. “You like that, you media, sensationalism,” Émilie Turcotte told me. You are trying to pretend that there will be a shortage of trees. Yes, the demand is very high, but there will be no shortage. If Estrie, which is the national capital of the Christmas tree, cannot supply Quebecers with Christmas trees, we have a problem. ”
The pandemic has sparked an upsurge in the popularity of the natural tree. More of us seek the beauty and fragrance of a tree that grew in nature. We want a beautiful and idyllic holiday season to chase the final months away. Anyone who is fast approaching will not escape this trend.
Émilie Turcotte is an agronomist at BL Christmas Trees, a company that produces approximately 400,000 trees per year.
I can tell you that everything will be fine. Normally around December 20, mostly spruce trees remain. This will still be the case this year for latecomers. At 24, the sellers often stay with trees. The difference this year is that everything will be sold. This is a good thing.
Emilie Turcotte
While producers expect to be able to meet demand, a price increase is to be expected. Émilie Turcotte estimates it between 10% and 15%. This increase has been underway for years, moreover.
Yes, we, as consumers, have to make a difference. We are living in an unprecedented global uproar, the complex effects of which will occupy economic experts for the next 50 years.
But let’s try to break this cycle which means that at the slightest specter of a shortage, we launch an assault on stores to rob them and thereby create… this shortage.
This fear of not having, of not owning, of missing out on our habits and our benchmarks, we must fight.
Let us try not to succumb to threats.
Yes, we will have a tree this year. And we can even stuff it with our extra toilet paper.