Food supplies and labor run short as restaurants return to near normal

Shortages of key food ingredients and workers appear to be the biggest hurdles to restaurant comebacks in 2021 following a pandemic year that took a big toll on the industry's health. "We have seen the market come roaring back faster than anybody would have anticipated,” said Mark Allen, CEO of the International Foodservice Distributors Association. “The start up has been, in many ways, as difficult as the shutdown. … Everybody is trying to turn it on immediately and the capacity might not be there.”