BALTIMORE — The longshoremen’s strike at 14 ports between Maine and Texas, including the Port of Baltimore, is causing disruptions to food supply for grocers relying on products from overseas.
Kosta Boyoukas, the owner of Maryland-based Prima Foods, attempted to get a shipment of food before the 25,000+ port workers went on strike, but the supplies didn’t arrive in time.
With the work stoppage, his supplies are static outside of a port in Norfolk, Virginia.
Boyoukas, who gets the majority of his goods imported from Greece, is waiting on two containers filled with olive oil, olives, cheese and frozen food. There’s no timeline for when the shipment will reach land.
“Now they’re sitting there and we have more coming behind those,” Boyoukas said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen to the first ones.”
Experts say that an extended strike could cost the economy up to $5 billion per day and eventually trickle down to small business owners.
“The longer they sit, the more money we lose, because we’re not going to have products to sell,” Boyoukas said.