I’m seeing more and more articles like this pop up lately. The cynic in me says it’s simply the media looking for a new equine to flog. The conspiracy buff in me says it’s TPTB warming us up to the idea of Soviet-style grocery shortages. Regardless, I post the link here for your own scrutiny.
The article does make some sense about the threats to the food chain. For you TL;DR types, here they are:
- Virus outbreaks at food plants
- Agricultural reliance on guest workers
- Supply chain mismatches
- Increased food insecurity (Which really has nothing to do with the food chain)
- Crunch on delivery capacity
The first one, virus outbreaks at food plants, are already happening as several meat processing plants have had to dial back. The rest…we shall see.
But despite all this, for now, my local supermarkets seem to be puttering along just fine. Of course, everything works fine right up until the point it doesn’t. Is this the calm before the storm of empty shelves? I have no idea. But… you don’t wait for a drought to dig a well, so if you’ve got some gaps in your pantry now might be a reasonable time to get ’em plugged.
Media’s primary mission is to keep the population in a perpetual state of panic. Not saying the Kung Flu isn’t real, but it’s just the next iteration of “California is on fire again”, earthquakes(!), global whatever, ozone layer, acid rain, sun spots, drowning polar bears, etc., etc.
Supply chain mis-matches is a very real thing. In Iowa, they’re getting ready to euthanize thousands of piglets and hogs because there isn’t capacity to slaughter and package them for consumption. It isn’t because there aren’t hungry people willing to eat pork.
Oil is another good non-food example.
Here’s a novel one: a major coffee producer recently warned me about the potential for coffee shortages. Not because there isn’t plenty of coffee, but because most of the supply chain is geared toward producing k-cups. With millions of people now working from home, they are brewing pots of coffee instead of making a quick k-cup for the road. The coffee supply chain is no longer set up to put whole coffee (beans or ground) into 1-lb bags.
Folks have about 3 weeks to stock their freezers before some major shortages (and price increases) of packaged meat begin showing up in many areas IMO…
Regards
If you are looking for bulk supplies, check out Restaurant Depot. Most have opened to the general public due to lower demand from C19. They are normally only for licenses restaurant businesses. It’s Costco on steroids for those that don’t know. I hit up the local one last week, and they were well stocked on food with excellent prices. Not alot of organic selection, if that is your thing. For preppers looking to bulk store rice, beans, flour, sugar, etc. this is where you want to start. Also meat, diary, and produce were well stocked as well. Huge supply of Nitrile and Latex gloves. Stock it deep while you can.
If you local Restaurant Depot is still only business to business, they are available thru Instacart. The selection is somewhat reduced, and Instacart has a small fee and I think a percentage increase to pricing, but it can be a way to buy from them if you don’t have a business license or tax id…
n
We don’t have a Restaurant Depot in my AO but we have a couple smaller commercial supply places that will sell to anyone. You have to know what you want as they are just some big warehouses and freezers so you tell them what you want and they bring it out to you. They have the best prices on some stuff but you have to buy quite a bit at a time (B/S chicken thighs in 40 lb boxes).
You forgot one of the biggest threats to the US food supply…Government assistance!
From the daily FEMA status newsletter comes this little tidbit…
NE: 13 out of 25 ethanol plants (52%) in State are pausing operations due to COVID-19 affecting ethanol margins nationally; the plants collectively produce 1,266,000,000 gallons of ethanol annually which is used in part for producing sanitizers and disinfectants
–HALF the ethanol plants offline. Gotta admit, I never thought of this one.
n
Yeah, this underscores something I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen: don’t just look at the consequences of the pandemic (people getting sick), but look at the downstream consequences (economic, infrastructure, crime, production, prices, shortages, etc.)
Agreed Zero, it the downstream issues that have me concerned as well. The economic damage may take generations to fix, if ever! I think everything you have cited will be reality if we don’t open this economy back up and soon. The sad thing is there are people in this country who are betting on a collapse to use it as a spring board to push their socialist agenda.