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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2020
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Mid-Valley endures freezer shortage due to COVID-19
Increased demand, disrupted
supply wreaks havoc in home
appliance industry
Capi Lynn
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
The standalone freezer
in Ellen Kersey’s garage
suddenly went kaput a
couple of weeks ago. No
problem. Or so she
thought.
The long-time adjunct
instructor at Corban Uni-
versity headed for Kelly’s,
the local appliance dealer
where she bought the
upright model about five
years ago, to shop for a re-
placement. And then she
discovered the unthink-
able.
Kelly’s had no freezers,
not in the showroom, not
in any warehouse. It
didn’t matter that Kersey
wasn’t choosy and would
have settled for any size,
any model.
She checked big-box
stores and other retailers
online, only to get the
same answer. There were
none.
Half of her and her
husband’s frozen food
stash had to be dumped.
The other half went to
their son’s freezer.
Others are facing simi-
lar crises due to a freezer
shortage in America.
If you haven’t been in
the market for one, you
probably wouldn’t know.
But if you think you might
need one in the coming
months, it might be a
good idea to get on a wait-
ing list. Most stores have
one because freezers
have been on back-order
since early in the CO-
VID-19 pandemic.
Increased demand and
disrupted supply chains
have wreaked havoc in
the home appliance in-
dustry.
The supply chain took
an initial hit when China,
the main supplier of raw
material required for
kitchen
appliances,
adopted measures to
contain then a still-un-
known coronavirus. Ma-
jor distribution channels
would be halted once CO-
VID-19 reached here as
production plants had to
shut down and revamp
assembly lines.
When stay-at-home
orders were issued and
communities hunkered
RESTAURANT
INSPECTIONS
down to curb the spread,
panicked buyers stocked
up on food. Empty
shelves in stores meant
crowded
freezers
in
homes.
Government
stimulus checks gave
consumers incentive to
buy a freezer, a second
one or upgrade an old
one.
Add the fact that appli-
ance use has increased an
estimated 30 percent be-
cause people are cooking
at home more, and ana-
lysts expect product
shortages to continue to
hinder
the
industry
through the end of the
year and perhaps well
into next year.
Some vendors are tell-
ing local appliance out-
lets that while trying to
fulfill the backlog of or-
ders, they won’t be ac-
cepting new orders until
after June 2021.
“I hope it gets better,
but I don’t see it happen-
ing. The pressure is just
not letting up,” said Matt
Gentle, one of the owners
of Stover, Evey and
Jackson in Corvallis. “I
thought some of it would
have been over by now,
that somebody would
have gotten caught up.”
He has nearly 50 cus-
tomers awaiting freezers.
And it’s not just freezers
anymore. He has a wait-
ing list for dishwashers,
too, and refrigerators and
ranges are getting tough-
er to find. He’s yet to re-
ceive the order of ranges
he placed in late May.
Orders start trickling
in
It’s an unprecedented
time in the industry, es-
pecially taxing on family-
operated stores that have
been serving their com-
munities for generations.
Kelly’s
Appliances
opened in 1974 in Salem
and now has stores in
Corvallis and Eugene.
As Labor Day ap-
proaches — traditionally
one of its top three busi-
est sales days of the year
— owner Jeff Kelly is opti-
mistic things are begin-
ning to turn around.
He received confirma-
tion on Wednesday, Aug.
19, that an order of 50
A wall where freezers normally are displayed, is now occupied by odds and ends, at Master Appliance in
Monmouth. PHOTOS BY BRIAN HAYES / STATESMAN JOURNAL
freezers should be in
sometime in the next
week or so. He said
they’re not all spoken for,
but a downpayment is re-
quired to secure one.
“If we had this conver-
sation a month, two
months ago, it was a
much more grim out-
look,” Kelly said. “I think
we’re through the worst.”
Eric Coffman, third-
generation owner of Mas-
ter Appliance in Mon-
mouth, hopes so. The de-
mand for freezers in his
community picks up
around this time of year
as people begin to freeze
bounty from their gar-
dens and butcher ani-
mals from their farms.
All he can do is ask
that they be patient. His
shop operates factory-di-
rect with major manufac-
turers such as Whirlpool,
Frigidaire and G.E., and
he’s awaiting back-or-
dered freezers in almost
every size.
Meantime, they’re do-
ing more major repairs
because customers don’t
have the option to replace
them.
No one saw the
shortage coming
The surge in freezer
sales happened early in
the pandemic and when
stores went to replenish
their stock, there were
none available, and they
had no answers for loyal
Location: 1001 N Ar-
ney Road, Suite 626,
Woodburn
Date: Aug. 6
Score: 100
No priority violations
atures, specifically: Mea-
sured temperature of
milk 44°F and chocolate
milk 44°F. Gravy hot
holding at 100 F. Point
deduction: 5.
h The use of time as a
public health control is
not properly monitored,
food is not properly
marked or written proce-
dures have not been de-
veloped,
specifically:
Shell eggs and pooled
eggs (43°F) do not have a
written procedure or
markers indicating time
as a public health control.
Point deduction: 3.
Aug. 6: No priority vi-
olations
Pizza Hut
Spicee Bite
Taco Del Mar
Location: 244 Main
St., Dallas
Date: Aug. 7
Score: 100
No priority violations
Location: 123 E Main
St., Monmouth (mobile
unit)
Date: Aug. 2
Score: 100
No priority violations
Location: 4092 State
St., Salem (mobile unit)
Date: July 23 (rein-
spected Aug. 4)
Score: 94
July 23: Priority vio-
lations
h (REPEAT) Food-con-
tact surfaces are not
clean, specifically: Food
debris on stored knives
and magnetic knife hold-
er. Point deduction: 6.
Aug. 4: No priority vi-
olations
Location: 1920 Turner
Road SE, Suite C, Salem
Date: Aug. 4
Score: 97
Priority violations
h Food-contact sur-
faces are not clean, spe-
cifically: Dark buildup on
can opener and can open-
er blade. Point deduc-
tion: 3.
Shari's Restaurant
Starbucks
Location: 5005 Com-
mercial St. SE, Salem
Date: July 24 (rein-
spected Aug. 6)
Score: 92
July 24: Priority vio-
lations
h Potentially hazard-
ous food is not main-
tained at proper hot or
cold holding temper-
Location: 1560 N Pa-
cific Hwy., Woodburn
Date: Aug. 6
Score: 95
Priority violations
h Potentially hazard-
ous food is not main-
tained at proper hot or
cold holding temper-
atures, specifically: Milk
in the reach-in refrigera-
Continued from previous
page
quate, specifically: The
kitchen dishwasher sani-
tizer level is at 0 PPM - no
sanitizer residual. Point
deduction: 5.
Pan Asian Express
Rick's Place Coffee
Pushcart
tor is 46°F, 47°F, and
45°F. Ambient air ther-
mometer in the reach-in
reads 48°F. Point deduc-
tion: 5.
Subway
Location: 3912 Center
St. NE, Salem
Date: Aug. 3
Score: 95
Priority violations
h The quaternary am-
monium sanitizer con-
centration, pH, or tem-
perature is not adequate,
specifically: Quat sanitiz-
er residual dispensing
around 100 PPM. Point
deduction: 5.
Master Appliance store, shown here on Thursday, has experienced shortages of
freezers since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It has a group of customers
on a waiting list.
customers.
“When
somebody
comes in and they’ve got
a freezer down and it’s
full of food they often
worked very hard to get,
it’s really sad to say I don’t
have anything,” Gentle
said. “They’re in despair,
and I feel it. These are
people who’ve done busi-
ness with us for 40 years,
and I have to send them
somewhere else.”
Aaron Nevel, general
manager of Willamette
Valley Appliance, esti-
mated his stores in Sher-
wood and Canby receive
around 100 calls a day
about freezers. (Its Keizer
location closed about a
year ago).
The Kerseys are wind-
ing up saving money be-
cause of the shortage.
They’re having their bro-
ken-down freezer in the
garage repaired — for less
than it would have cost to
buy a new one — and
hoping it lasts at least un-
til the supply chain re-
turns to normal.
“Forward This” taps
into the heart of the Mid-
Valley — its people, histo-
ry, and issues. Contact
columnist Capi Lynn at
clynn@StatesmanJour-
nal.com or 503-399-6710,
or follow her on Twitter
@CapiLynn and Face-
book @CapiLynnSJ.
Taste of a Fair –
Roadhouse
Location: 2330 17th St.
NE, Salem (mobile unit)
Date: Aug. 6
Score: 100
No priority violations
Due to the holiday,
our offi ce hours and
obituary placement
times may vary.
Two Hearts Bistro
Location: 380 High St.
NE, Salem
Date: Aug. 5
Score: 100
No priority violations
Please contact us at
503-399-6789 or
obituary@statesmanjournal.com
for further details.
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Taste of a Fair –
Elephant Ears
Location: 2330 17th St.
NE, Salem (mobile unit)
Date: Aug. 6
Score: 100
No priority violations
Taste of a Fair – Hot
dog cart
Location: 2330 17th St.
NE, Salem (mobile unit)
Date: Aug. 6
Score: 100
No priority violations
He’s heard from ven-
dors who won’t accept
new orders for freezers
until after June. His
stores have received four
in the past six months,
but he has at least 20 cus-
tomers waiting for one.
“Their dates, because
they got in five months
ago, are expected in No-
vember and December,”
Nevel said.
There has been a silver
lining for Willamette Val-
ley Appliance.
“Our service side is ac-
tually growing,” he said.
“We’ve hired three techs
since COVID. I think local
stores that don’t do ser-
vice will have a hard time
(surviving this).”
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