Food Shortage Thread

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harakim
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Food Shortage Thread

Post by harakim »

Fred posted some specific information on shortages in my shortages thread. I think it would be good to have a thread where we:
1. Talk about shortages we notice
2. Inquire about the health of the supply chain across the US (and the world). I think we have people in at least 10 states and countries who post here and it would be interesting if people thought there was a shortage of bottled water or bread, to inquire. Maybe we even just have a list of 10 commodities we watch and when you go to the store, you update your status post with any new information.

Anyway, I thought something like this could be interesting. I go to the store very infrequently but if this has interest, I can make regular trips to report on the supply in my region.

So, let's start with shortages we notice and see where it goes.

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AkalAish
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by AkalAish »

harakim wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 10:26 pm Fred posted some specific information on shortages in my shortages thread. I think it would be good to have a thread where we:
1. Talk about shortages we notice
2. Inquire about the health of the supply chain across the US (and the world). I think we have people in at least 10 states and countries who post here and it would be interesting if people thought there was a shortage of bottled water or bread, to inquire. Maybe we even just have a list of 10 commodities we watch and when you go to the store, you update your status post with any new information.

Anyway, I thought something like this could be interesting. I go to the store very infrequently but if this has interest, I can make regular trips to report on the supply in my region.

So, let's start with shortages we notice and see where it goes.
Shortages of many things (including necessities) are the norm in Alaska. For this reason, many Alaskans hunt, raise gardens (both in raised garden beds as well as in greenhouses) and have substantial food storage.

I think this is an excellent topic.

OCDMOM
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by OCDMOM »

I have heard tomatoes and tomato products. California raises the most and they have had a bad year. There was also 2 semi's that spilled tomatoes on the freeway. I have not noticed a problem yet.

EmmaLee
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by EmmaLee »

No real shortages here (upper Midwest) now, as far as food stuffs - although, to get everything on my shopping list, I usually have to go to 2-3 different stores, as no one store ever has everything I need anymore (which is a new development in the last 2 years).

I've been looking for frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and there are none to be found anywhere for any price - so I have contacted a local farmer and will be purchasing two fresh ones from him (I should have done it this way every year).

Cars are a different matter, as they are in very short supply here - especially good used cars. It's astonishing to drive around town and see near empty car dealership lots.

Services, stores, restaurants, etc. pretty much all have "Help Wanted" signs on their doors, so there is a huge shortage of workers which is, in turn, forcing these stores and restaurants to have dramatically shortened hours, etc. The two aquatic centers in our town both had to close in early August because they couldn't find enough people to be lifeguards - something that has never happened before in our town's history (they are always open through Labor Day weekend).

So here anyway, there is more of a worker shortage than a food shortage - for right now, at least.

tribrac
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by tribrac »

Shhh...they have kept it out of the news, but lots of turkeys died because of bird flu.

Buy your Thanksgiving early.

EmmaLee
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by EmmaLee »

tribrac wrote: October 4th, 2022, 2:43 pm Shhh...they have kept it out of the news, but lots of turkeys died because of bird flu.

Buy your Thanksgiving early.
I don't believe any turkeys (or chickens) have died recently in the U.S. because of bird flu. They've just killed them all to further their agenda (which I know you know).

Lizzy60
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by Lizzy60 »

I saw frozen turkeys at a Walmart near Ft Worth today. They were about double the price of last year.

EmmaLee
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by EmmaLee »

Lizzy60 wrote: October 4th, 2022, 3:58 pm I saw frozen turkeys at a Walmart near Ft Worth today. They were about double the price of last year.
Was it the whole turkey, or just the breast? Frozen turkey breasts are available here, but not whole turkeys, for any price, in any stores. I guess time will tell if they get some in before Thanksgiving.

Lizzy60
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by Lizzy60 »

EmmaLee wrote: October 4th, 2022, 4:21 pm
Lizzy60 wrote: October 4th, 2022, 3:58 pm I saw frozen turkeys at a Walmart near Ft Worth today. They were about double the price of last year.
Was it the whole turkey, or just the breast? Frozen turkey breasts are available here, but not whole turkeys, for any price, in any stores. I guess time will tell if they get some in before Thanksgiving.
I didn’t look that closely. It may have been breasts. I will be back on Friday and report here what I find.

Also, this Walmart, and the one a bit farther from Ft Worth (Decatur) are doing major renovations. Several rows of their parking lots are full of shipping containers with supplies. When I see empty shelves, or shelves with empty bins holding the space, I don’t know if it’s the moving around of stuff, or lack of stuff.

EmmaLee
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by EmmaLee »

Lizzy60 wrote: October 4th, 2022, 4:26 pm
EmmaLee wrote: October 4th, 2022, 4:21 pm
Lizzy60 wrote: October 4th, 2022, 3:58 pm I saw frozen turkeys at a Walmart near Ft Worth today. They were about double the price of last year.
Was it the whole turkey, or just the breast? Frozen turkey breasts are available here, but not whole turkeys, for any price, in any stores. I guess time will tell if they get some in before Thanksgiving.
I didn’t look that closely. It may have been breasts. I will be back on Friday and report here what I find.

Also, this Walmart, and the one a bit farther from Ft Worth (Decatur) are doing major renovations. Several rows of their parking lots are full of shipping containers with supplies. When I see empty shelves, or shelves with empty bins holding the space, I don’t know if it’s the moving around of stuff, or lack of stuff.
Interesting, yeah, it makes you wonder. It's the same with our Walmart parking lot. In fact, the shipping containers are now taking up about 1/2 of the parking spots for the pick-up orders - and every week there are more and more.

Thanks, I'd be interested to know if you do have whole frozen turkeys there.

tribrac
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by tribrac »

Saw plenty of frozen turkies at a Walmart i dropped into today.

Didn't go in for turkey but looked around for things because of this thread.

Shelves are pretty full of most everything at Walmart on the Wasatch front.

Prices continue creeping upwards.

Package size keep shrinking.

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Pazooka
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by Pazooka »

Better buy your back-up butter now

moving2zion
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by moving2zion »

Hmmm,. Haven't posted for a long time, but there's a lot I could drop on this post. We have had a hard time getting certain repair parts for vehicles and equipment. It was frustrating a year ago, now it's out of control. In both Spokane and Seattle, WA the worker shortage is the direct result of policies that encourage people to stay home. As a result companies of all sizes are falling behind on their contracts. As they can't complete projects due to resource and labor shortages they end up laying more people off and compounding the problem.

We have been trying to buy a new vehicle for work. My wife and I have been to dealerships in ID, WA, and Oregon but none have been able to fill our order. One dealership finally contacted me and said they had one in stock and tried to raise the price 3k so we walked away from it.

It's not just the necessities either. I'm the ECS for our ward and have noticed the primary suppliers for radios are running short on inventory and passing out rain checks on popular models.

Three years ago I looked at getting something called a turntable for a toy train layout. It was $1800 with 2-3week delivery as they are custom made. Decided to wait and try to pay cash. Now they run closer to $3000 with a 5 month waiting period

moving2zion
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by moving2zion »

It's been interesting to go into stores that had lots of variety before with only a few of each item on the shelf and now they carry two or three items of the same type with the shelves looking full because they have moved all of their stock onto the floor.

I went to buy oil for my Honda Rebel and was excited to see the store had shelves full of oil. Then I realized that they were displayed one bottle deep and the same brand was on 3 or 4 shelves. So a case of 12 was spread out to make the shelves look full. I promptly bought enough for two oil changes concerned that I might not be able to next summer.

moving2zion
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by moving2zion »

Another thing that could be added to the list is firearms, ammunition, and reloading components . There's a lot of info behind why these are in short supply, all you can hope for at this point is to try and get lucky. A Ruger 77/22 in 22 Hornet was $600 when I got married. Now they are selling for $1300 used on gun trader. I haven't seen one at a licensed dealer for at least 6 years but Ruger still lists them in their catalog

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harakim
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by harakim »

moving2zion wrote: October 5th, 2022, 9:53 pm Hmmm,. Haven't posted for a long time, but there's a lot I could drop on this post. We have had a hard time getting certain repair parts for vehicles and equipment. It was frustrating a year ago, now it's out of control. In both Spokane and Seattle, WA the worker shortage is the direct result of policies that encourage people to stay home. As a result companies of all sizes are falling behind on their contracts. As they can't complete projects due to resource and labor shortages they end up laying more people off and compounding the problem.

We have been trying to buy a new vehicle for work. My wife and I have been to dealerships in ID, WA, and Oregon but none have been able to fill our order. One dealership finally contacted me and said they had one in stock and tried to raise the price 3k so we walked away from it.

It's not just the necessities either. I'm the ECS for our ward and have noticed the primary suppliers for radios are running short on inventory and passing out rain checks on popular models.

Three years ago I looked at getting something called a turntable for a toy train layout. It was $1800 with 2-3week delivery as they are custom made. Decided to wait and try to pay cash. Now they run closer to $3000 with a 5 month waiting period
I can confirm some parts are very hard to come by. I am pretty good at finding them online. Someone at my work has had their Honda in the shop for 9 months waiting for some kind of front bumper sensor. We also took our vehicle into the shop and I think they might have switched out one of our parts for an old non-working one. We had just replaced it and it was good and it looked really old and was loose. I'm not ready to say they did that for sure, but I don't really see what else could have happened! Car parts is the one place where the shortages have been scary. I would probably say ammunition is also scary if I were trying to buy any.

farmerchick
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by farmerchick »

AI or avian influenza is a particularly high threat to poultry this year. California has lost chicken and turkeys recently and AI has been reported in Oregon and Washington in the past few months in back yard flocks....commercial flocks so far in the pnw are unaffected but on alert. Walmart in my area also has containers in the parking lot....I don't usually shop Walmart but did notice the containers have been there for some time. Grocery prices here are very expensive like at least 30 percent higher since the spring, but seems I can get everything I want easily. Construction materials seem to be a problem. My remodel windows and doors have been delayed. I Ordered them in may and June and still not here. We have plywood in place for now but I would like to get them before it really starts to rain....lol.....

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BigT
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by BigT »

In the few places we shop locally for guns and ammo, they are better stocked now than last fall, when we first bought weapons. Utah County. Our online sources have dropped prices a little and seem to have a lot of inventory. I don’t know about turkeys as our freezers are full anyway. A real shocker would be if Costco didn’t have fresh turkeys for .99 lb as they have for years.

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Fred
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Distilled Water

Post by Fred »

Water in gallon jugs has been off and on for well over a year. Particularly distilled water. CPAP machines can get plugged if the water has minerals in it. Wet, deep cycle batteries (lead acid), used to store power in solar electric systems, use distilled water to replace water that evaporated or was boiled out by charging.

moving2zion
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by moving2zion »

There are always market fluctuations based off of local demand and preferences. I have to travel quite a bit with work so I have paid attention to the local impacts of the continuing inflation. I can see how the richer areas are better stocked than small towns and poorer communities. As goods flow to the areas were people are willing to pay more to get them the have's are experiencing higher inflation. The have nots are quickly learning to do without.

I tried to purchase a tool this week, Home Depot only showed it being in stock at 3 of their locations for the entire state of Washington.

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Momma J
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by Momma J »

moving2zion wrote: October 6th, 2022, 9:59 pm There are always market fluctuations based off of local demand and preferences. I have to travel quite a bit with work so I have paid attention to the local impacts of the continuing inflation. I can see how the richer areas are better stocked than small towns and poorer communities. As goods flow to the areas were people are willing to pay more to get them the have's are experiencing higher inflation. The have nots are quickly learning to do without.

I tried to purchase a tool this week, Home Depot only showed it being in stock at 3 of their locations for the entire state of Washington.
We have found the same issue for riding lawnmower tires. It took us several months before ours were shipped

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Momma J
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by Momma J »

We have learned that we actually prefer store brand to national brands. If you are lucky enough to be in an area that has HEB groceries, their brand is most times superior.

We discovered this when the store brands were all that was available of some products. Now we save money and have foods we prefer.

moving2zion
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by moving2zion »

I have put Gear Vendor's OverDrives on two of my trucks. The first one back in 2010. At the time the GM sold the gear oil at $16 a quart. Then it went to $18, no big deal. Then $22, that was a little frustrating. I tried five dealerships in western WA with the hope I could change mine before I head home. Only 1 of 4 dealerships had it in stock and they now want $33 a quart.

If the UN and the central banks seriously try to push price controls it is only going to make things worse. Inflation will only get worse and so will availability. People will pay the advertised price with their digital money and then slip cash or other goods on the side. I saw this in Argentina, Iraq, Kuwait, Mexico. It will become the norm here as well if the try to go that route.

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mudflap
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by mudflap »

Pazooka wrote: October 5th, 2022, 8:17 pm Better buy your back-up butter now
good grief, no kidding.

SouthEast: It jumped $1.50 for a 2-pack here in a week - now $8.58.

Lizzy60
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Re: Food Shortage Thread

Post by Lizzy60 »

EmmaLee wrote: October 4th, 2022, 4:34 pm
Lizzy60 wrote: October 4th, 2022, 4:26 pm
EmmaLee wrote: October 4th, 2022, 4:21 pm
Lizzy60 wrote: October 4th, 2022, 3:58 pm I saw frozen turkeys at a Walmart near Ft Worth today. They were about double the price of last year.
Was it the whole turkey, or just the breast? Frozen turkey breasts are available here, but not whole turkeys, for any price, in any stores. I guess time will tell if they get some in before Thanksgiving.
I didn’t look that closely. It may have been breasts. I will be back on Friday and report here what I find.

Also, this Walmart, and the one a bit farther from Ft Worth (Decatur) are doing major renovations. Several rows of their parking lots are full of shipping containers with supplies. When I see empty shelves, or shelves with empty bins holding the space, I don’t know if it’s the moving around of stuff, or lack of stuff.
Interesting, yeah, it makes you wonder. It's the same with our Walmart parking lot. In fact, the shipping containers are now taking up about 1/2 of the parking spots for the pick-up orders - and every week there are more and more.

Thanks, I'd be interested to know if you do have whole frozen turkeys there.
I just returned from Walmart. There were turkey breasts for $1.88 lb, and whole premium Butterball turkeys for $1.48 lb. I didn’t see any of the less expensive brand they usually have every year. But, it’s still early days.....

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