(Yicai Global) Feb. 21 -- Some of China's largest frozen food producers are failing to catch up with rising demand amid the new coronavirus epidemic that has kept employees and consumers homebound longer than expected.

The online stores of four major players, including Synear Food Holdings and Sanquan Food, have run out of most of their products, Yicai Global learned. These firm's Wuhan warehouses that distribute goods to the surrounding Hunan, Henan, and Jiangxi provinces, have no notice about when deliveries should return to normal.

Many regional governments have ordered those who traveled during the prolonged the Spring Festival holiday to stay home for a 14-day quarantine period before getting back to their offices to reduce transmission risks. That boosts demand but also limits factory labor.

Synear Food's Henan plant reopened three weeks ago and its output has reached nearly 40 percent of the full capacity, the Zhengzhou-based firm told Yicai Global.

Delivery is another problem. The head of a Henan province-based cold chain logistics company told Yicai Global that the firm has hired charter vehicles to carry employees back to their cities of work after the holidays, only to recover less than half of the normal capacity.

Editor: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine