It’s confusing for Painted Stave customers to see their favorite liquor and spirits in different bottles each time they buy it. But a shortage of bottling and packaging materials leaves the distillery taking what it can get when it’s available.
“And then when we finally could start finding glass, now boxes," said Mike Rasmussen, co-owner of Painted Stave’s. "The ability to package our bottles in a six bottle box, how we normally did them, well now no one supplies six bottle boxes anymore, and the supplier that we could buy from in the past, used to take a $5,000 order, now has a minimum of $70,000 order. So trying to find a new supplier that can supply boxes for us is now probably our next challenge.”
Supply chain disruptions are worsening and multiplying in nearly every industry, and at Painted Stave's, health and safety regulations require everything to leave the distillery in a pre-approved, sealed bottle, so until a supply is found, the spirits have to wait in the tank.
Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester met with the distillery owners Wednesday morning to hear how they have been affected, and how two bills in Congress— the House-passed America COMPETES Act and the Senate-passed United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) — could help.
“It's research and development, its workforce training and opportunity, it's national security.," Blunt-Rochester said. "Our supply chain provisions, in particular, create an office that is focused on it on a nationwide basis because it's something we've never done before. And so we've never looked at how these things affect us as a country?”
She also met with owners of Willis Chevrolet in Smyrna, who told her it’s taken as long as six months for a single pane of glass to ship.
Blunt-Rochester will take their concerns to Congress to try and push through the America COMPETES Act and the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), she says in the next two weeks.
“We want things manufactured here, because if it can be made in America, then we should make it in America,” Blunt-Rochester said.
The bills would help expand science and technology sectors to boost domestic manufacturing.
