Emergency Food Supply

[Welsh_Dragon]

In Wales farmers are complaining because they are pouring gallons of milk away, that was destined for coffee shops and restaurants. No one is redirecting the supply. Also, there is plenty of meat available, like roasting joints and steaks but no minced meat. A new phrase has been coined ... ‘the bolognese brigade’.

 

[Christine]

My cousin is a manager at one of our large chain grocery stores. He says that there really hasn't been any interruptions in the food supply, it's the buying habits and hoarding that have changed the look in your grocery store. For instance, he said on whatever his "meat" shipment day is, they get in a total of about 1500 various pieces of pre-packaged meats. These would be things like steaks, pork tenderloins, ham, pork roast, chicken breast, etc. Those things would generally last 2-3 days. Now, just about all 1500 pieces are gone by the end of the day for the store. So depending on when you go into the store, you might think "there's a meat shortage, there was only about 10% of meat in all the cases."

Same goes for everything else they order (toilet paper, paper towels, frozen veggies, etc). They aren't getting shorted at the store, people are still over buying. Some stores have tried to step up their orders, but they have to be careful because when the panic stops, they will be stuck with too much.

Stores like Walmart seem to really suffer because they attract such a mass of people and those masses are hoarding that they can be decimated in a couple of hours.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I would worry about how to store that, and how long it would keep. I guess it could be put into some type of "rotation" so that it got used, but I still think there would end up being a lot of waste.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

How do you figure? We had to do 20 more meals than normal (kids, DW, and I all home for lunch). No, we don't normally pack a lunch. So yes, for us, staying home means we do need MORE food. To say nothing about the snacks and drinks we would normally have at work and now supply at home.

Normally, DH would eat a yogurt or some eggs at home for breakfast 3-4 days a week, and stop at fast food to get something the other 3 or 4 days. DS would eat cereal or frozen waffles in the morning before school. I usually eat a yogurt or rice w/milk/sugar/cinnamon. Neither one home for lunch...DS eating at school; DH either going out to eat or eating a frozen tv dinner or leftovers sent from home for lunch. My lunches were usually a can of chili or leftovers or a tv dinner. Dinner here usually consists of a meat and 2 bags of frozen veg (yes, we eat 2 bags of veg between 3 people; since we don't have those fillers....potatoes/rice/pasta/bread...that take up space). Sometimes, we would do fries or baked/mashed potatoes, and maybe 1-2x a month, pasta; rice occasionally.

Now, I'm cooking breakfast for 3, making lunches for 3, and dinner for 3. And the snacking and desserts. Plus the coffee and tea is flying out the doors.

I can’t AFFORD Mountain House for three months. Lol

I prefer Pack It Gourmet, myself. Tastes much more homemade, but is more expensive. IDK if they are going to make it through or not.

https://www.packitgourmet.com/Trail-Meals.html

 

[cmrdgrs]

Not wanting to be alarmist, but a 3 month emergency food supply right now seems the common sense approach, given the food supply situation, Never thought I would advocate this as an American but prudence dictates otherwise,

Godspeed.

I didn't take your post to be alarmist in anyway Deploraboo. I was really thinking when I read your post that you aren't necessarily talking about the immediate, but maybe the future?

I agree with what some of the PPs said. Where I am in the country stock on the shelves in our stores still look pretty bare. I have to say when I go to the store it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy to still see so many things you would normally buy not in stock. The other thing is that since we are being asked to only shop once a week or once every two weeks, it is just the luck of the draw when you go in to a store. I used to go to the store daily and now I'm going about once every two weeks.

The articles I have read indicate that the food supply chain is out of wack right now, but the supply is there. I'm feeling confident that there is enough food, and don't feel a need to have 3 months of food on hand right now. However, I do think the pandemic is going to change people and there will be some people who will start thinking about being better prepared for the next time something like this happens. I know I will be giving a thought to ways to be better prepared. Not sure what that looks like yet, I'm just trying to get through the here and now.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I always keep several months worth of protein in the house so the current situ is not a problem for me. Getting fresh produce can be but not because it's not in the store. It's going to the markets and the higher cost that irks me.

 

[mombrontrent]

I’m a manager at a grocery store so I’ve seen what has been going on first hand. We are still getting regular shipments just sometimes a day or two later then expected and sometimes stuff is shorted but it usually comes in with the next shipment a couple days later. So for example on Thursday we were shorted bananas so we had none for a couple days but they came in yesterday and because it was insanely busy and everyone that shops in now loading their carts they didn’t last the whole day. We still have a lot of empty spaces on the shelves but it’s because the volume of product going out of the store has more then doubled the last month as more people are eating at home instead of at school or fast food or restaurants ect.

Some things are hit and miss and it just depends when you come and if we just recieved and order. One day you might visit our store and see no eggs, and the next day it could be fully stocked so it really just depends on the luck of the draw sometimes.

We have a limit of shoppers allowed in the store at one time and as management we take turns at the front door letting customers in as another comes out. We greet each customer as they come in and give them a sanitized cart and most people fill their carts so they don’t have to come back often. There is people who I greet coming in everyday though and sometimes I see the same people back more then once in the same day, that I don’t get because there’s a line to get in and a line to cash out but I guess some people have too much time on their hands and don’t mind the waiting

I have seen some crazy things the last month and have some great stories, I had an older woman freak out on me the other day because I tried telling her she had to get in the line to enter the store and she wasn’t having any of it, she only needed “one article” and demanded I let her in and when I told her she needed to wait in the line with the rest of the people she refused and told me she would stand by my side until I let her go in. She kept asking how much longer she had to wait so I just let her go in after a few people came out so I could get her away from me most people are really really good and understanding about our procedures and even welcome them, it’s just the few weirdos that try and butt in line or sneak into the store while I’m trying to retrieve carts that everyone leaves piled by the doors.

 

[cmrdgrs]

I’m a manager at a grocery store so I’ve seen what has been going on first hand. We are still getting regular shipments just sometimes a day or two later then expected and sometimes stuff is shorted but it usually comes in with the next shipment a couple days later. So for example on Thursday we were shorted bananas so we had none for a couple days but they came in yesterday and because it was insanely busy and everyone that shops in now loading their carts they didn’t last the whole day. We still have a lot of empty spaces on the shelves but it’s because the volume of product going out of the store has more then doubled the last month as more people are eating at home instead of at school or fast food or restaurants ect.

Some things are hit and miss and it just depends when you come and if we just recieved and order. One day you might visit our store and see no eggs, and the next day it could be fully stocked so it really just depends on the luck of the draw sometimes.

We have a limit of shoppers allowed in the store at one time and as management we take turns at the front door letting customers in as another comes out. We greet each customer as they come in and give them a sanitized cart and most people fill their carts so they don’t have to come back often. There is people who I greet coming in everyday though and sometimes I see the same people back more then once in the same day, that I don’t get because there’s a line to get in and a line to cash out but I guess some people have too much time on their hands and don’t mind the waiting

I have seen some crazy things the last month and have some great stories, I had an older woman freak out on me the other day because I tried telling her she had to get in the line to enter the store and she wasn’t having any of it, she only needed “one article” and demanded I let her in and when I told her she needed to wait in the line with the rest of the people she refused and told me she would stand by my side until I let her go in. She kept asking how much longer she had to wait so I just let her go in after a few people came out so I could get her away from me most people are really really good and understanding about our procedures and even welcome them, it’s just the few weirdos that try and butt in line or sneak into the store while I’m trying to retrieve carts that everyone leaves piled by the doors.

As a PP stated -- thank you to all of you working in the grocery stores (along with the hospital/emergency workers) -- we appreciate your efforts to service the rest of us.

I guess what I don't understand mombrontrent is why people are still feeling the need to overbuy. The food seems to be making it to the stores, and there is plenty of supply. Or maybe they are not overbuying, and their family dynamic related to feeding their family has changed. Probably a bit of both, I guess. For me, my habits and my needing to feed the 4 of us in my family hasn't changed.

 

[mombrontrent]

As a PP stated -- thank you to all of you working in the grocery stores (along with the hospital/emergency workers) -- we appreciate your efforts to service the rest of us.

I guess what I don't understand mombrontrent is why people are still feeling the need to overbuy. The food seems to be making it to the stores, and there is plenty of supply. Or maybe they are not overbuying, and their family dynamic related to feeding their family has changed. Probably a bit of both, I guess. For me, my habits and my needing to feed the 4 of us in my family hasn't changed.

It actually did slow down quite a bit the last couple weeks , still much higher volumes then normal but ramped right up again the past few days. Several factors I think play into it. Easter weekend, still plenty of people eating big meals. The fact that grocery stores were closed here Friday and today. Also here in Canada on Thursday the government paid out the benefit program for all those effected by lost income so a lot of people were probably waiting on that money and made huge shopping trips.

 

[cmrdgrs]

Hopefully the overbuying will start to slow mombrontrent. I feel confident I can feed/provide for my family and my elderly Mom. I'd just personally start to feel better about the food situation if the shelves in my local grocery stores weren't so bare. And as you said, since I'm only going to the store once every two weeks, its the luck of the draw for inventory.

Stay healthy and well!

 

[gillep]

As a PP stated -- thank you to all of you working in the grocery stores (along with the hospital/emergency workers) -- we appreciate your efforts to service the rest of us.

I guess what I don't understand mombrontrent is why people are still feeling the need to overbuy. The food seems to be making it to the stores, and there is plenty of supply. Or maybe they are not overbuying, and their family dynamic related to feeding their family has changed. Probably a bit of both, I guess. For me, my habits and my needing to feed the 4 of us in my family hasn't changed.

Our habits have changed drastically, it isn't overbuying for us, it is a huge shift in how much we are eating at home each day. My husband used to eat all three of his meals and snacks at work (work provided), on weekends we pretty much ate out from Friday dinner to Sunday dinner. Now, we are eating almost all of our meals and snacks at home, we order delivery once or twice a week. It is a huge shift in the amount of food we are buying, especially since my husband eats way more than I do. I eat two meals a day, he eats three, leftovers used to last me a good five or six servings, now I am lucky if a meal can feed us both twice, usually we get three full servings out of a meal. I also used to go to the store a few times a week to pick up fresh bread, produce, or meat for my dinner. Now I shop every 14 days, so my cart is full each trip instead of being a 2-4 item trip. Our eating habits are changing too, I am wary of fresh produce because I don't know who has touched it or coughed on it, and unless it can be cooked in a meal I am just staying away right now, so my meals are a bit different now too. I have gone through more milk and eggs in a month than all of 2019, this is not an exaggeration, I hardly ever buy either of these items because I just don't eat them unless I am cooking something or eating cookies and milk, but apparently my husband lives on milk and likes eggs on a variety of things that confuse me, so here we are in some endless cycle of buying eggs and milk and doing more dishes than I thought possible.

Our stores are doing really well with stock the past couple weeks though, as far as I could tell on my two trips, paper products, cleaning supplies are the only things really difficult to find.

 

[DisneyDreaminDee]

There is not enough food on the grocery store shelves at any given time for anyone to even do that at this point.

We have a variety of food in our cupboards/basement that we could probably get through without starving to death but it would be such random items that we would be having some very odd meals.

"They" are recommending to shop for groceries 2 weeks at a time but again there's not even enough food at any given time for us to do that.

We're still running to the store multiple times a week as per usual because if we need 6 items to get us meals for the week then we can only find 2 even after going to 3 stores. So then we have to check in a couple of days and they will have a couple more things and a couple more days the rest.

At least we know what we are eating for about the next week since we have a 18lb ham lol.

 

[SteveH]

We've been Costco shopper since the mid-90s. We're normally stocked up for a month and as things hit we added some essentials to our last bring run. I go back to Costco once a week to pick up milk, fresh, fruit & veggies. They are pretty well stocked, though they do run out of items.

Logistics and getting things back up and running is going to be the bigger problem. Trade, internationally isn't happening, containers are sitting half full in ports, farmers are not planting because the storage is full. This is the next big challenge, getting things back up and running.

If your vehicle tires are bad now, don't wait prediction is there will be tire shortage in the US as we don't have the manufacturing here and getting them from other countries is going to take while to get the logistics worked out.

 

[kdonnel]

Preparation has always been mocked, will always be mocked.

 

[tvguy]

Hard to predict what the next disaster will be, but I agree, having a stockpile of CANNED food can't be a bad idea. I say canned because my wife's family in southeast Texas were without power for nearly 2 months after hurricane Rita. They were big believers in keeping a freezer full of food and they not only lost thousands of dollars of food, they ended up having to throw out the freezers too. But I grew up during JFK's Bay of Pigs/Cold War, and my parents kept a months worth of canned food and water at home, and a week's worth in the trunk of both cars.
We have lots of empty shelves in the store....I am literally just back. I agree it is people stocking up, or in my case, people buying things that have been out of stock for weeks. I spent twice what I normally spend because they FINALLY had stuff I have been out of for a month. Expensive things like fabric softener and laundry detergent.

IN SHORT SUPPLY HERE:
All paper products. TP, Kleenex, paper towels and napkins.

Cleaning supplies. Bleach, Clorox wipes.

Eggs, although some of that may be because of Easter.

Milk. Which is odd because dairy farmers are dumping milk. But that apparently has to do with the capacity of the packaging plants to make consumer sized containers. The market for restaurant sized milk containers......6 gallons....is gone. As is the market for the half pint sized cartons for schools. The packaging plants making quart and gallon sized containers are running around the clock.

Canned soup. The shelves have been wiped out for a month

Canned vegetables, although it was not been sold out in the last 2 weeks, just lots of empty slots

Canned fruit, but again, not sold out like the last 2 weeks, just lots of empty slots.

Corned Beef. Usually they have a big closeout after St. Patrick's Day. This year it was sold out before St. Patrick's day

Ham. Easter, I know. It had been in stock until this week. No bargain closeout price next week for sure, it's gone

NO SHORTAGES HERE:
Fresh fruit
Fresh Vegetables
Beef
Pork
Fish
Chicken. It was sold out a month ago, now there is plenty in stock. However, they are currently only stocking the 3 pound + value packs. No big deal, that is all we buy, and then repackage it at home and freeze it. We have a month's worth of chicken.

 

[Christine]

There is not enough food on the grocery store shelves at any given time for anyone to even do that at this point.

We have a variety of food in our cupboards/basement that we could probably get through without starving to death but it would be such random items that we would be having some very odd meals.

"They" are recommending to shop for groceries 2 weeks at a time but again there's not even enough food at any given time for us to do that.

We're still running to the store multiple times a week as per usual because if we need 6 items to get us meals for the week then we can only find 2 even after going to 3 stores. So then we have to check in a couple of days and they will have a couple more things and a couple more days the rest.

At least we know what we are eating for about the next week since we have a 18lb ham lol.

I got shamed on another forum for this exact behavior. Told that I shouldn't be going out to the grocery store at all except in 2 week to 1 month intervals. Doesn't matter what my freezer could fit. I was told that I was too spoiled because I couldn't survive on frozen veggies for months at a time, etc. I mean, I guess they were right and I admit I'm not going to be good in a dystopian, post-apocolyptic society, but I'm just try to eat healthy and have some daily fresh produce and well-rounded meals. The best I've been able to do is about 8 days, but, like you, I've had some real hit or miss experience and have had to hit multiple stores to get most of what I need.

 

[disneychrista]

I guess what I don't understand mombrontrent is why people are still feeling the need to overbuy.

I “over bought” when I went shopping two weeks ago because I was buying for 3 weeks vs 3 days like I normally would. I never know what I’m going to want to eat so I bought the basics for 3 weeks and the extras for every meal I might want. 2 weeks in and I am wishing I had certain ingredients but I’m making due with what I have. Next Saturday when I shop again, I won’t be buying as much because I’ll still having some of the extras (sauces, etc) but will still need the basics (protein, frozen veggies, rice, etc).

 

[cmrdgrs]

That makes a lot of sense disneychrista. It's not really that people are "overbuying" so much as they just need more because they are shopping less frequently

 

[mjkacmom]

At the moment this seems to be a very localized/regional issue. Around here (Minnesota), we went through a couple of weeks where most things were quite hard to find. We had a few extra weeks worth of provisions around the house (mostly frozen meat, canned goods, pasta, etc..), and we went through about 1/4 of it (we were supplementing our stored food with what we were able to find in the grocery stores). After a couple weeks of things being quite hard to find, stock levels started stabilizing and going up. Back at the beginning, it seemed I could get less than half of my list while out shopping. Now, I am finding everything with the exception of one or two things.

A friend of mine out in NJ is still having trouble getting everything they need in their area (and it has been this way for about a month), so there are definitely some areas that are struggling. Our household is back up to 3-weeks of stored food, plus a week of food we are using. That 3-weeks could be stretched to 6 by rationing.. wouldn't be fun, but we could make it work.

My last instacart shopper couldn’t get fresh garlic, orange juice or corn tortI’ll as, and half of my cart needed substitutions. I try to stock up on frozen food, canned tomatoes, broth, pasta and rice. I don’t have a pantry, so I stay away from ready to eat food (and when I say stock up on, it’s probably 2 - 3 weeks worth, my 100 year old house doesn’t have a lot of storage.

 

[OKbyme]

Local radio had an announcement to please stop hoarding. We have a large elderly population and low income, so they really don't have the kind of money to stock up, and those doing so cause shortages so people have to keep going back to the stores to purchase items they can't get.

I usually go 2 to 3 times a week. One is due to lack of items I need, smaller fridge, but also because I am currently feeding 5 adults and a 3 yr old. Yowza! I think I'm good for a week and it's gone. And like someone posted up thread, these are people who aren't normally here to eat 3 meals a day. I charge everything, so I think I will look at my credit card bills from last year at this time and see how much more I'm spending.