Panicked New York bagel shop owners are hoarding cream cheese and crossing state lines for supply as dairy companies struggle against supply chain crisis

A bagel with cream cheese and lox. — iStock/Getty Images

New York City bagel shops are experiencing a shortage of cream cheese due to heightened demand and supply chain constraints.
Several store owners told the New York Times they've started hoarding cream cheese or driving to New Jersey for supply.
The schmear is the latest consumer product to be hit by the ongoing supply chain crisis.

The supply chain crisis has come for yet another beloved commodity — New York City bagels.

Bagel shops in the nation's largest city are experiencing an unprecedented shortage of cream cheese, causing many to begin hoarding the spread, with some even crossing over state lines to get it, the New York Times reported. Local favorites from Zabar's and Tompkins Square Bagels in Manhattan to Shelsky's in Brooklyn said they are struggling to find ways to meet demand for the schmear.

According to the New York Times, dairy manufacturers and suppliers have come up short in filling orders of pallets of unprocessed and unwhipped cream cheese in recent weeks. Bagel shops use this raw cream cheese as a foundation to create their own flavors, and thus typically don't turn to grocery store alternatives to fill voids.

Several business owners told the Times they only have enough cream cheese to last a handful of days, and are at a loss for alternatives. On Thursday, the owner of Tompkins Square Bagels in Lower Manhattan was informed his 800-pound order of cream cheese would not be arriving at all.

"Sunday bagels are sacred," Christopher Pugliese, the owner of Tompkins Square Bagels, told the New York Times. "I hate feeling like I've let people down."

The spread is the latest in a growing list of consumer products plagued by shortages thanks to the supply chain crisis. Everything from personal-care products to popular food items continue to face bottlenecks, leading to recent price hikes across major consumer packaged goods companies like Unilever and Procter & Gamble.

According to Kraft Heinz, the parent company of Philadelphia Cream Cream, the cream cheese shortage is tied to increased demand for "several of its products," partially driven by a rise in Americans eating from home during the pandemic.

"We continue to see elevated and sustained demand across a number of categories where we compete," Jenna Thornton, a Kraft Heinz spokeswoman, told the Times. "As more people continue to eat breakfast at home and use cream cheese as an ingredient in easy desserts, we expect to see this trend continue."

And while bagel shop owners said they have no immediate plans to increase prices, some are cutting less popular flavors of cream cheese from their lineups in an effort to preserve the commodity.

"This is bad. This is very bad," Pedro Aguilar, a manager at Pick-a-Bagel, told the Times.

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