The continued supply problems have caused at least one South Coast chippery to shut its doors this week, months after heavy rains wreaked havoc with potato farmers' crops.

Major supermarkets Coles and Woolworths have been unable to provide frozen chips at many Illawarra outlets, and the giants can't say when supplies will be back online.

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At Shellharbour Village fish shop Santorini by the Sea, owner Burak Ozturk is clever enough to have a range of options, unlike the supermarkets who usually rely on two major companies.

He said potato scallop supplies had been disrupted at one stage, but the chips were good to go.

"I've got about three or four different suppliers, so if one of them doesn't have it I try and go to another one, bounce around," Mr Ozturk said. "It's not the same pricing ... but you do what you have to do to get through it.

"I wouldn't be able to open the doors [without chips] - I can't sit there and cut potatoes myself."

In Bateman's Bay popular fish shop Roy's could not open as it had no spuds.

A spokeswoman for Simplot, one of the major suppliers, said the previous growing season was also tough.

"Our industry is facing ongoing challenges due to recent local and global weather events and continued logistics impacts, which comes off the back of a tough previous season," she said.

"We are expecting demand to remain high in light of this situation and anticipate there could be some ongoing shortages due to impacts on crop availability.

"We are working closely with our Tasmanian potato growers to support them with the current season planting and harvesting and continue to work closely with our retail and food service customers to best manage any product availability issues."

A Coles spokesperson said it would be several weeks before stocks were normalised.

"Poor weather in the eastern states has affected supply of some frozen potato products across the industry," the spokesperson said.

"We thank customers for their patience while we work hard with suppliers to minimise disruption and return stock to normal levels in the coming months."