Local supply chain shines in disaster
THE value of strong local supply chains came to the fore when local bakers and butchers stepped up to feed the masses during widespread food shortages.
As is often the case in natural disasters, supermarket shelves were stripped bare as locals heeded severe weather warnings ahead of Tropical Cyclone Alfred and bought supplies to bunker down.
Major supermarkets in Beaudesert closed at the height of it all, impacted by stock shortages and taking safety precautions as weather warnings intensified.
A lot of bread
Local bakers at The Gisler Pie Company, headquartered at Beaudesert Enterprise Precinct, turned their hands to bread, pumping out 2000 loaves across six days to help fill the gap.
They also completely sold out of pies (their usual specialty), sweets and frozen goods and sold ice for people to keep their food cool.
Cyclone Alfred was a record time for Gisler’s, who also have businesses which were impacted at Thornlands, Cleveland and Burbank.
Their Beaudesert site is a wholesale operation which usually opens to the public the first Saturday and third Sunday of each month.
Cee Trimmer from Gisler’s said demand in Beaudesert was significant during Alfred.
“As fast as we were getting them out of the oven people were waiting and we ended up selling them unsliced because there was no time to cool them for slicing,” she said.
“We were just selling straight out $5 coffee, $5 hot pies from the truck, it’s normally about $7.50 a pie.”
By their sixth day of sales, as rain persisted on March 10, Gisler’s gave hundreds of loaves away to families and also donated bread and bacon to the Rural Fire Service at Woodhill.
John Gisler said they went above and beyond.
“We don’t even make bread – we’re a pie company – but we went and got another two tonnes of flour, we worked around the clock, we’re just here for the people,” he said.
Locals deliver
Shops in Beaudesert CBD also rose to the challenge.
Heit’s Quality Meats got ahead of the disaster, getting extra meat on Thursday before the disaster and only closing Friday afternoon and Saturday morning in case wild weather hit.
Jason Wilson said locals relied on them.
“What happens is once the supermarkets run out, we get customers we’ve never even seen before,” he said.
Craig Heit said they did close to double their usual sales and were lucky not to lose power with no generator to save the extra meat they had invested in to service local demand.
Emily Navie from Beaudesert Bakehouse said they sold out of 200 loaves before 8am the Sunday of Alfred and had to order in another 200 fresh loaves that day.
They basically sold out of bread every day and also gave free loaves away with purchases and took some to emergency services for distribution.
