Mostly cloudy this evening. Scattered thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low 71F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Mostly cloudy this evening. Scattered thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low 71F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

An employee pours a cup of coffee at Norman’s Gray Owl Coffee.

An employee pours a cup of coffee at Norman’s Gray Owl Coffee.

Norman businesses say they are no exception to the latest COVID-related supply chain issue: disposable cups and containers.

Perc Pineda, chief economist for the Plastics Industry Association, told Scripps National News in August contributing factors to a nationwide plastic goods shortage include increased demand at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic for healthcare products and single use items, industry worker loss and a lack of raw materials such as resin used in the products. Some restaurant cups are made from styrofoam, a material derived from the plastic polystyrene.

In Norman, shortages of disposable restaurant goods can be seen in business owners having to change available size offerings and allocate additional time and resources to source from other companies than their usual distributors.

“Everybody is out of things, and it seems like every day is a new thing,” said Mandy Haws, owner of Sooner Bowling Center.

PJ Taylor, co-owner of The Meating Place on Main Street, said his costs in a two-week order period for plasticware has increased because of limited wholesale supply. This has led to more plasticware purchases at Wal-Mart, he said.

“We can’t pass the price off to the customer, so we just have to eat it and hope volume takes care of it” Taylor said. “The bar, kitchen and supplies have all been heavily affected by COVID-19, and I don’t know that it will stop anytime soon.”

Some large restaurant chains aren’t exempt from supply challenges, either. Amanda Beuchaw, public relations director for Braum’s, said the restaurant chain has sourced from outside suppliers. It’s a difficult move for a company with nearly 300 stores nationwide, she said.

“A national supplier sends [orders] to our warehouse, and then we ship to our stores on Braum’s trucks, so the biggest issue for us is finding a supplier that has enough of everything to stop at all of our stores,” Beuchaw said.

There are four Braum’s restaurants in Norman.

Erika Barker, co-owner of Gray Owl Coffee on Gray Street, said her business initially faced challenges getting 16 oz cups. It eventually progressed to 12 oz cups, she said.

Barker said she noticed a pattern of outages from the shop’s usual supplier and set aside time to search through online retailers. They were out of stock on similar items, she said.

“It seems like it started with more [environmentally friendly] types of cups, but has extended to regular plastics,” Barker said. “I had to drive up to a store in Oklahoma City last week to get cups because we couldn’t get them online anywhere.”

The retailer they found had a one-box-per-day limit, Barker said.

Last week, she said they ordered two cases of cups, but when the shipment arrived, there was only one case.

Barker said Gray Owl doesn’t have a special relationship with any wholesalers, and doesn’t discount the idea of larger retailers having a priority on high-demand items.

“I could imagine bigger ones having relationships with them where it might guarantee a better chance of getting particular things,” Barker said.

Another coffee shop, Yellow Dog Coffee Company, has had to deal with straws, lids and cups in short supply for weeks. The shop currently has just one size cup for to-go drinks due to continued outages on their regular supplies, co-owner Rob Wilson said.

“We mainly use the 16 oz cup for hot and cold drinks,” Wilson said.

Wilson is also co-owner of Cool Beans Coffee, a drive-thru kiosk on Alameda Avenue. He said the disruption this summer has required on-the-fly problem solving, but it has not heavily impacted their ability to serve customers.

“It hasn’t caused us any real problems because we just make serving adjustments,” Wilson said. “Obviously we are going to do what we can, and we use a lot of plastic cups that are plant-based. Those compostable cups have been easier for us to get.”

At Sooner Bowling, outages vary from week to week, said Haws. Haws said all of her three regular suppliers — Cisco, U.S. Foods and Ben E. Keith — are feeling the supply shortages.

“Anything from plates, cups, boats — recently it has been styrofoam for us,” Haws said.

With Sooner Bowling’s cost of goods already set, adding the unpredictability and varying price points of cup and container suppliers means Haws has to pay extra attention to available stock, she said. Haws said she’s decided to “cross-use” items when possible to avoid overstocking.

“For example, two of our cup sizes will fit one lid and the other sizes will fit another lid,” she said.

This summer, Haws said her vendors will notify her when one of her regular items is out of stock, but ultimately there’s nothing they can do to remedy the issue.

Jeff Elkins covers business, living and community stories for The Transcript. Reach him at jelkins@normantranscript.com or at @JeffElkins12 on Twitter.

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