I remember a ‘sugar shortage’ in the 1970s. I don’t remember what caused it, but I think it was more of a large price increase than an actual shortage. I remember a few restaurants not putting sugar at the tables, and people stealing packets of sugar when they were available.
Does anyone else remember that?
I do. We went on a cross country trip for the Bicentennial and again the next year and being Southern our drink of choice was always sweet tea, which you can’t get most places outside of the south so we’d order iced tea and ask for sugar. I remember that asked for sugar for the iced tea one place and were brought a pack each and were told that if we wanted more (even for refills) there’d be a [small] charge. That’s when we started using Sweet’n’Low in restaurants for coffee/tea because while usually it’s more expensive than sugar there was no charge for it (plus it dissolves a lot better in unsweetened iced tea).
There was a coffee shortage too as memory serves and the price skyrocketed but never really came back down. And I also remember when most restaurants automatically brought ice water to customers upon seating them; that stopped due to water shortages when it became a “we’ll bring it if you ask for it” thing.
I’ve never even heard that there was a sugar shortage (am I making you guys feel old yet?) But now I think I finally understand why Homer said “In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.” (And yes, I know it’s a Scarface reference.)
Would this have had anything to do with protectionism?
– Homer Simpson
I remember it. And now that it’s over, I’m still waiting for candy bars to come back down to a nickel.
I remember it too.
It was quite tense in our house when it happened, my wife wanted to use what sugar we had for her tea and for cooking. I needed it to brew my beer.
So we came to a compromise, she gave up using it in baking and I let her drink some of my beer instead of tea.
They were never a nickle in my lifetime. Or a dime. I think they cheapest they were when I was a kid was like 25¢ or 30¢.
I never stopped to think it was a worldwide thing.
It certainly was - I remember it as well. I stopped taking sugar in my tea/coffee at about that time, which is probably why I still have all my teeth.
I remember my grandparents hoarding 50 lb sacks of sugar in their bedroom. They stayed there unused for many, many years.
I remember the Beef shortage.
And I have yet to figure out why it happened, except for corruption or stupidity.
A shame, really. Grandparents can be so useful outside the bedroom. 
Gods, I love an ambiguous pronoun!
I not only remember it, in one of my previous lives as a public relations guy I actually worked for the sugar industry. Here’s what happened.
Until the mid-70s, Congress propped up U.S. sugar production by setting a tariff on imported sugar, so it couldn’t undercut the price of the domestically produced stuff. Then Congress, for once following the urgings of economists rather than the clamor of special interests, let the tariffs expire.
Immediately foreign sugar producers seized on the opportunity and flooded the U.S. with low-cost sugar. The next year, a whole bunch of American sugar producers switched to other crops. The sugar beet industry (primarily in northern states, as opposed to the sugar cane industry in the south) practically disappeared overnight as processing plants were shut down.
At that point, the price of sugar abruptly skyrocketed. I don’t have my old sugar materials handy, but I think it went from about 5 cents a pound wholesale to about 25 cents.
So there never was an actual sugar shortage, but rather a huge increase in sugar prices.
After a couple of years, Congress reinstated the sugar program and prices stabilized.
There were two lasting effects:
The agriculture industry has used this for 25 years as an example of why farm subsidies are needed to keep prices stable and ensure domestic production.
The price spike led directly to the development of high fructose corn syrup and its use as a sugar replacement – and a generation of whining that Coca-Cola just doesn’t taste the same anymore.
And Bosda, the beef shortage was a direct result of the disastrous corn blight in 1972-1973. When corn prices went through the roof, feed prices did the same, and ranchers got rid of their cattle. It took a few years to get corn production back up and let the ranchers rebuild their herds.
I don’t remember the sugar shortage myself, but I ran across a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers cartoon that referenced it. Freewheelin’ Franklin sends Fat Freddy out to score some of the ‘Sweet Stuff’, and he buys it from a shady looking guy in an alley. Franklin tells Freddy he got burned again, the ‘Sugar’ was 90% Heroin, it barely made the coffee sweet.
I remember the 70’s sugar situation. People got all panicky. My family would cross into Mexico and there would be people selling 50 lbs sacks of it on the sides of the road. It was good stuff, I remember it being a tan color and much more coarse. We might have been buying Cuban!
I remember the huge increase in the price of soft drinks. Sugar prices soared, soft drink prices soared. Sugar went down, soft drinks stayed up. T
If you can find soft-drinks (still) made with cane sugar, give them a try. Much tastier than corn syrup. It’s not really whining, honest.