Facebook groups help moms find formula
Plus: Diesel suppliers warn of shortages as fuel prices surge; Taller buildings in SouthPark; Commencement weekend for Charlotte colleges; Odds improve on N.C. sports betting; LaMelo's new tats
Good morning! Today is Monday, May 16, 2022. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
SPECIAL DEAL: Ledger + locally roasted coffee: Sign up today for a paid Ledger membership ($99), and we’ll include a 12 oz. bag of locally roasted coffee! The Ledger and CXN Advisory have teamed up on a medium-light “Crossword Blend” from Sugar Creek Coffee Roasters of Indian Trail (value: $15). It’s ideal for drinking while reading The Ledger. We’ll email you to get your mailing address after sign-up. Whole bean and ground available in limited quantities. Local news + local coffee, what a pairing.
Today’s Charlotte Ledger is sponsored by SPARK Publications. SPARK Publications custom publishes your nonfiction books (business, coffee table, cookbooks, workbooks) to help grow your business and platform. Need to build your brand by publishing a book? Fabi Preslar helps create that vision with you. Get more info here!
Amid severe shortages, online communities in Charlotte are helping desperate moms locate baby formula — and even frozen breast milk; ‘It’s been very emotional’
by Cristina Bolling
Local Facebook groups for moms have long been a place where women seek support and advice, but in the last week, they’ve turned into what seems like a lifesaving mission — helping each other source infant formula during a serious nationwide shortage.
From moms sharing photos of sparse store shelves to those scouring kitchen cabinets for forgotten-about samples and anxious mothers who are down to their last formula cans, Charlotte Facebook groups like Moms Helping Moms–Charlotte area and Charlotte Moms have become a golden resource for parents of infants.
“This is all I saw at Costco on Tyvola in case you are needing it. … 5/14/22 @ 5:30pm,” wrote one mom on Saturday on the Moms Helping Moms–Charlotte area Facebook page, atop a photo of 11 cans of Enfamil scattered on a shelf.
And another posted in all-caps anxiety: “WHERE CAN I FIND ENFAMIL NEUROPRO ALMOST OUT 😭😭😭😭😭🙏🏾💯💯💯”
The nationwide baby formula shortage, which is the result of a recall by major formula manufacturer Abbott Laboratories and supply chain challenges, is expected to ease up in the next several weeks. But for now, anxiety is high among families with formula-fed babies.
Abbott said it expects to resume manufacturing in its Michigan plant within two weeks, and once production is resumed, the formula should be on the shelves in 6 to 8 weeks.
A woman shops for baby formula at the Walmart in Denver, N.C., on Sunday afternoon. The store had almost no varieties of Enfamil or Similac but had plenty of Good Start.
Charlotte availability worse than average: For the week ending May 8, baby formula in Charlotte stores was out of stock 52% of the time — a figure surpassed by only three other cities (Las Vegas, Houston and Nashville), according to statistics from Datasembly. The national average was 43%. Anecdotally, parents of infants in Charlotte say shelves have been getting thinner, especially in the last week.
And that’s caused moms across Charlotte to band together, with some even offering strangers extra frozen breast milk from their freezers.
Crisscrossing the region for formula: One Charlotte mom named Bebe (she asked to have her last name withheld due to privacy concerns) said she’s been in crisis mode since her pediatrician told her about a week and a half ago that her 1-month-old son’s tummy troubles meant he was allergic to formula made from cow’s milk, and she quickly learned that the special formula he needed wasn’t on store shelves.
She posted her plight in the Moms Helping Moms–Charlotte area Facebook group on Saturday, and she said four women came forward with five cans of the formula her son, Amari, needs. The women had received the cans as samples from a formula company but didn’t need them.
“It’s been very emotional,” Bebe said. “I was at a point where I was depressed, and I was so scared.”
She drove all the way to Fayetteville last week when she heard a Walmart there had cans on the shelves. After her post on Facebook, she drove to Huntersville, Mount Holly and “all parts of Charlotte” to meet moms who reached out to her on Facebook.
“When I look at my table right now, it’s giving me a little bit of relief,” she said. “I wish all moms could feel like this. It’s amazing.”
‘A different ballgame’ of community support: Robin Mann, who’s been the administrator of the Moms Helping Moms-Charlotte area Facebook page for the last eight years, says what she’s seen in the last week among her 14,500 members surpasses even the come-togetherness she saw at the height of the pandemic.
“During Covid, people were posting, ‘There’s hand sanitizer here and masks here,’” Mann said. “But this is a different ballgame. This is feeding your baby.”
Mann, whose own kids are 20 and 21, said the seriousness of the situation caught her by surprise when she started seeing members make SOS posts looking for formula as the crisis was escalating last week.
Mann is the lone administrator of the group and she approves every post before it appears on the Facebook page, which usually number about 50 a day — usually women looking for pediatrician recommendations, sharing birthday party ideas and baby items for sale. But as of last weekend, about 70% of the posts were formula-related.
Mann said she feels a special sense of urgency to keep on top of approving posts, because some contain leads on formula supplies in stores that could be gone in hours or even minutes.
“Yesterday I was at a baby shower and somebody posted (that formula) was at Walmart,” she said, “and I was like, ‘Oh crap — it might be gone now.”
Cristina Bolling is managing editor of The Ledger: cristina@cltledger.com
Other resources:
Today’s supporting sponsors are T.R. Lawing Realty…
… and Landon A. Dunn, attorney-at-law in Matthews:
Gas prices hit new records — and concern rises about diesel
Local gas prices are continuing to push to record highs, but some analysts are saying that the even-higher record diesel prices could be more troublesome.
That’s because truckers and shipping companies will be paying more to transport just about everything people buy, and those costs will be passed along to consumers and businesses and continue to jack up inflation. Locally, diesel hit $5.52 a gallon in the Charlotte region on Sunday, its highest average price here ever, alongside the highest-ever cost of a gallon of regular unleaded, $4.23.
“Any time it relates to energy, there is generally going to be a pretty noticeable downstream impact to the consumer side, ranging from food to just about anything that we buy,” said Dan Son, who heads U.S. Bank’s global trade and supply chain finance business, in an interview last week with The Ledger. “It’s a tough one for the trucking companies. They are already facing a major shortage of truckers. Now, they are having to deal with fuel prices almost doubling. Diesel expenditures were already a large part of the cost base.”
In addition to higher prices, shipping companies could face actual shortages. Inventories are at their lowest levels in 17 years, and a refinery company CEO told Bloomberg last week: “I wouldn’t be surprised to see diesel being rationed on the East Coast this summer.” Love’s Travel Stops told customers in an email last week that drivers might experience fuel supply problems in several states, including North and South Carolina.
The diesel prices and potential shortage stem from a drop in U.S. refining capacity, labor shortages and the war in Ukraine, experts say. —TM
Oh, the places they’ll go
COLLEGE GRADUATION WEEKEND: Several Charlotte-area colleges held commencement ceremonies, including (clockwise, from upper left) Davidson College, where 454 graduated on Sunday (including NBA star Stephen Curry, who didn’t attend) ; Central Piedmont Community College, where about 900 students participated in Thursday’s ceremony, out of nearly 2,300 eligible to graduate; Johnson C. Smith University, which held a ceremony at Bojangles Coliseum on Sunday; and UNC Charlotte, which held three ceremonies over the weekend honoring nearly 5,000 undergraduate and graduate degree recipients. (Photos: Chris Record/Davidson College; Darnell Vennie/Central Piedmont; Johnson C. Smith University; UNC Charlotte)
Developers eyeing taller and taller buildings in SouthPark; The Colony might want to go higher
With the news last week that a Florida developer is proposing a project that would include an apartment tower of up to 195 feet, the developer of the site that’s under construction across the street says he might be interested in building a taller tower than initially envisioned.
Tim Hose of Synco Properties, which is redeveloping The Colony site in SouthPark, told The Ledger last week that in light of last month’s City Council approval of a 250-foot office tower in Phillips Place and a proposal to build a 195-foot tower on the site of the Trianon condos, Synco might seek approval for taller buildings, too. The Colony, which was rezoned in 2016, is approved for only 160 feet at its highest point.
“If they’re granting tall buildings to other properties in the area, we certainly wouldn’t want to sit back and miss that same opportunity,” he said. “If Trianon ends up with a significantly taller building, we would probably want to go back and say, ‘Hey, if you’re going to put that there, we are closer to the commercial district. We would think you’d want to have as much height as you have granted other property owners.’”
Such a request probably wouldn’t include seeking permission for more apartments at The Colony, because that could require a new traffic study. But it would allow the development to add green space, make the design more distinctive and add rooftop amenities, Hose said.
When fully built, The Colony could have as many as 990 apartments, including the 340 that are nearing completion in the development’s first phase. He says the first residents should start moving in around July, with the rest around the end of the year. Rents will probably go for between $1,800 a month for smaller units to about $4,000 a month for large three-bedroom units.
The tallest buildings in SouthPark at the moment are the Capitol Towers office buildings, at nearly 200 feet. —TM
In brief:
N.C. to allow online sports betting? A state legislator who backs online sports betting says he thinks he has the votes for the General Assembly to pass a gambling legalization bill soon after it reconvenes this week. Rep. Jason Saine, a Lincoln County Republican, said: “We think we can get that passed in the House. So we want to do that sooner rather than later. I would say within the first couple of weeks.” The measure passed the Senate last year, and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has said he supports legalization. The bill would allow for online betting on professional, collegiate, amateur and electronic sports. (WNCN)
Real estate campaign money: About 33% of the money raised in City Council races by leading candidates in the last few months came from the real estate industry, according to an analysis by Axios Charlotte. “There [are] few industries that have more at stake in local elections,” a UNC Charlotte political science professor said. A similar analysis by The Ledger in 2019 found 39% of donations to City Council campaigns came from the real estate industry. (Axios Charlotte)
Quick departure for Belk CEO: Belk’s CEO, on the job for less than a year, is “leaving the company to pursue other interests,” the Charlotte-based department store chain said in a news release on Friday. Nir Patel had been CEO since July 2021. Belk president Don Hendricks will take over as interim CEO starting today. The company emerged from a prepackaged bankruptcy about a year ago. (Observer)
Republican voting records: Republican at-large City Council candidate David Michael Rice, who calls himself “Lord God King,” has voted more often in local elections than the four other Republicans supported by the party. (WFAE)
Viva Chicken heads to Atlanta: Peruvian restaurant chain Viva Chicken recently opened its 15th restaurant last month, in Greenville, S.C. Last year, it opened its first store in the Charleston, S.C., area and is planning to expand into Georgia later this year, CEO Gerald Pulsinelli said. “The Atlanta market is our next target for growth,” he said. Viva Chicken’s first restaurant opened in Charlotte’s Elizabeth neighborhood in 2013. (Business North Carolina podcast)
Time to vote: Polls are open tomorrow from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. You might check out our guide to local voter guides that we published a couple weeks ago (3rd item), with links to the best resources to find vital info about candidates.
New tats for ’Melo: Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball has new tattoos on his hands and arms following a seven-hour tattoo appointment. TMZ reports, with photos, that “the tats feature butterflies, a UFO, LaMelo’s ‘LaFrance’ brand logo and ‘Not From Here’ … The pieces also feature a set of red flames on each wrist, which move up Melo’s forearm. We’re told there’s also another tattoo on each of Melo’s thumbs, which reads ‘Golden Child’ and is etched in gold ink.” (TMZ)
Join us for Charlotte Ledger night at ‘Charlotte Squawks’ on June 10; 10% off for Ledger members
Join Ledger editors and readers for a night at the comedy variety show, with a gathering beforehand and a Q&A with “Squawks” creators afterward. Details for Ledger members here (🔒). If you’re not a member, why not join today?
Taking stock
Unless you are a day trader, checking your stocks daily is unhealthy. So how about weekly? How local stocks of note fared last week (through Friday’s close), and year to date:
Need to sign up for this e-newsletter? We offer a free version, as well as paid memberships for full access to all 4 of our local newsletters:
➡️ Opt in or out of different newsletters on your “My Account” page.
➡️ Learn more about The Charlotte Ledger
The Charlotte Ledger is a locally owned media company that delivers smart and essential news through e-newsletters and on a website. We strive for fairness and accuracy and will correct all known errors. The content reflects the independent editorial judgment of The Charlotte Ledger. Any advertising, paid marketing, or sponsored content will be clearly labeled.
Sponsorship information: email brie@cltledger.com.
Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project