Sugar shortage impacting holiday baking plans

A sugar shortage across Western Canada is impacting holiday baking plans.

White and brown sugar has been hard to come by, as 138 workers at Rogers Sugar in British Columbia walked off the job in late-September. The Vancouver refinery is the largest in Western Canada. Workers are looking to keep their Monday to Friday eight-hour shifts, instead of working 12-hour shifts and also having to work weekends.

The Moose Jaw Co-op Food Store is feeling the pinch as customers look to get a head start on Christmas baking.

"We are anticipating that we will run out by the end of the week," said Moose Jaw Co-op General Manager Geoff Anderson. "We are being pro-rated sugar right now from our wholesaler Federated Co-operatives. They're monitoring the situation fairly closely."

Anderson says the strike is impacting the availability of both white and brown sugar. The Co-op is currently limiting the number of bags that customers are allowed to purchase.

Sugar purchases are being limited at the Moose Jaw Co-op Food Store.

He notes the Co-op Bakery does have enough bulk sugar to last for at least a couple of months.

"I think we will be able to meet the needs of the members. It would be more the packaged sugar that we're keeping a very close eye on to see when we can secure supply for our members."

In terms of timing, Anderson says the weeks leading up to Christmas are probably the busiest for local bakers.

"A lot of people are looking to start their Christmas baking and sugar is certainly a key component to that. Regardless, we are going to try everything in our power to secure a sugar supply for our members and we'll keep our members updated as far as when we can expect that."

Anderson says the Co-op Bakery should have enough bulk sugar to last for at least a couple of months.

Katrina Whyte, owner of Taste Patisserie by Katrina, says she's also noticed the impact of the Rogers strike.

"We're definitely feeling the effects of people hearing that there's going to be a shortage of sugar and we're definitely feeling the effects of our prices and costs going up even more because people are buying it and so it's becoming short in supply," she noted. "Fortunately we've been able to find some places that are still stocking the sugar."

Whyte mentioned that white sugar is easier to find than brown, however white has seen the biggest jump in price with a 20-kilogram bag now costing her $106 instead of $30.

"We've already lost our cost margin through this difficult time and so we've been kind of working at cost right now," she added. "So with the prices increasing even higher we will definitely have to raise our prices a little bit, which hurts me because I want people to still be able to afford our stuff and to be purchasing our beautiful products because we love what we do and I think that is probably the hardest part of all of this...The fact that it might start to make what we create inaccessible to the public, which is heartbreaking because we've seen a lot of our small businesses close."

Whyte says you can't really stockpile brown sugar which has made things difficult, however they were able to secure a private brown sugar supplier about a year ago which has helped.

"Our price has gone up but we're still able to get very small amounts of it to keep us going. Brown sugar in stores and with all of our different suppliers will actually become non-existent which is a little scary for the cooking season for sure."

Katrina Whyte says the sugar shortage is impacting her bottom line. (File Photo)

A lack of sugar will eventually impact the product line-up offered at Taste Patisserie by Katrina, although Whyte says she is looking at possibly revamping some of her recipes to use more molasses for certain items such as ginger cookies. She recommends that bakers also use honey as a substitute.

Whyte is hoping the sugar shortage will be short-lived.

"They do have some things in store and there's some other places where we can access sugar that will start opening up. Hopefully, this won't be long. It just kind of feels like the new toilet paper," she chuckled.

Mediation between Rogers Sugar and the Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC) is scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday. The Vancouver site is one of three Rogers Sugar refineries in Canada, supplying sugar to the Western market.

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