Munch in the gut for moviegoers

Moviegoers flocking back to the cinema this summer after pandemicinduced lockdowns will have to contend with another potential off-screen drama: a shortage of popcorn, candy, soda, and other snacks.

Inflation, a tight labor market, and supply-chain disruptions are adversely impacting the availability of food and beverages at movie theaters, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Theater operators are also having difficulty restocking key concession stand items such as popcorn bags and linings that prevent butter from seeping out, the Journal reported.

“At the end of the day, they have to have something to put popcorn in,” Neely Schiefelbein, the sales director for Goldenlink North America, told the Journal.

Supply-chain disruptions have also affected shipments of plastic trays that hold strands of licorice, plastic cups, nacho trays and soda flavors.

“It’s a mess,” Jeff Benson, the CEO of Cinergy Entertainment Group, which runs eight movie theaters in North Carolina, Texas and Oklahoma, told the Journal.

With pandemic restrictions lifted, the big screen is having something of a renaissance with challenges.

“Popcorn supply will be tight,” Norm Krug, the CEO of Preferred Popcorn, a consortium of 150 farmers who supply kernels to movie theater chains, told the Journal.

Krug said that he has been paying the farmers more to keep growing corn for popping instead of switching to other more lucrative crops such as soybeans, although he fears that the yields won’t be enough to keep up with customer demand.

Since soybeans don’t require the same expensive fertilizer to grow, Krug fears that farmers will have a greater financial incentive to abandon corn.