Paper shortage delays popular seed catalogue

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This article was published 28/12/2021 (1735 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If it weren’t for the global paper shortage, thousands of gardeners could be flipping through catalogues filled with T&T Seeds’s latest offerings.

The Headingley-based company prints around 95,000 copies annually. The booklets reach homes across Canada by mid-November so green thumbs can place their orders well ahead of spring.

“It’s one of those things that they really look out (for), and we have not been able to provide them with that experience this year,” said Chitra Paliwal, the director of sales and marketing at T&T Seeds.

The company’s local print shop T&T closed during the pandemic. So, the garden centre partnered with a Toronto company to print the catalogues it’s heavily relied on in the past.

Paper for printing didn’t come in time. Now, the booklets are set for an end of January release.

“It definitely has had an impact on our revenue, but more than that, it’s the relationship with the customers that we’re most concerned about,” Paliwal said.

T&T’s sales are down about 50 per cent from this November, but still up compared to pre-pandemic levels, she said.

The business is just one to be affected by what Paul Larson, a supply chain management professor at the University of Manitoba, calls “the perfect storm” leading to the paper shortage.

“In a nutshell, such shortages often mean a surge in demand coupled with capacity and supply issues,” he said.

A shift from plastic to paper bags, people reading more books during the pandemic, and a big appetite for Christmas packaging materials and print advertising flyers have contributed to a demand spike, Larson said.

Paper mills and transporters are facing a labour crunch, and transportation costs have risen, he added.

“I’ve also heard that many North American lumber mills shifted more capacity toward materials to feed the hot housing market — to the neglect of paper production,” Larson said.

Canada produces some raw materials for paper, but much of the usable product ships from Asia and other areas, Larson said.

“(The shortage is) probably made more extreme because of the holidays,” he said. “This is where there’s the biggest demand of the year for packaging materials.”

T&T Seeds has juggled workarounds to the company’s printing problem — it has made the catalogue available digitally (which isn’t new) and mailed flyers showcasing its new products to customers. The pamphlets are small and made in Winnipeg.

The retailer has also emailed and sent automated calls to its clients with options for ordering without the physical catalogue.

Many customers won’t use a digital copy, according to T&T’s Paliwal. But, many are finding their way without the print version, she said.

“This year is… going to be a good test for our company,” she said. “I feel that we’ve been very agile.”

Melanie Collao, the co-owner of Minuteman Press – St. Boniface, has been ordering stock ahead of time to combat supply chain backlogs.

Paper costs are increasing, and it’s harder to get large volumes — even of regular office sheets, she said.

“We’ve been getting used to… trying to load up on as much (paper) as we can just to cover the customers that we deal with consistently,” Collao said.

It’s been working so far, she added. Cardstock is popular, and she has intentionally bought it months in advance.

“As frustrating as it gets, (and) it just seems like… we’re hitting a wall, we have to understand that it’s a global issue and everyone’s feeling it,” she said.

She began noticing supply chain difficulties in the summer of 2021 and doesn’t expect them to end soon.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com