Something I noticed about the food supply issues

[Balthisar]

@Horatius

Yes, but the point is, that’s a almost uniquely American phenomenon. Even in Canada, which is probably the most American-like country that isn’t actually america, we don’t serve the amounts you do.

I don’t know if I’m just going to the wrong restaurants when people on either side of the border say this, but to me, at the types of places I eat, there’s really no difference between portion sizes in Ontario versus Michigan.

I would love for someone to mention some specific examples. Famously, there’s the Cheesecake Manufactory, but we don’t have those in Michigan and I’m not likely to go to one anyway.

[nearwildheaven]

@Ulfreida

Here in rural-ish New England, the farm stands, farmers’ markets, and general local food producers are going gangbusters. I see few shortages in the food co-op which preferences local foods, including local meat, dairy, and egg producers. This is a system which is much more flexible than the gigantic industrial food system most of the US relies on. I read today that the same thing is happening nationally – the small growers are selling direct to consumers, the mega growers are having a horrible time because the supply chain is broken and re-tooling is a vast slow process.

It seems likely to me that small farmers, which have gotten a shorter and shorter end of the stick over the past decades, might get a permanent boost from this. One can hope anyway.

It would be great if you are right, especially if the food is less expensive because it doesn’t have to go through several layers of middlemen. (Not that they don’t need jobs too.)

[susan]

I’ve been reading The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruinsby Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. It’s hard for me to critique because I don’t have a background in economics, and the terminology can be dense. It’s fascinating, though, and examines many issues that are relevant today, such as the shift from US manufacturing to US branding and advertising, and the effects on the supply chain of outsourcing production to other countries.

[nearwildheaven]

I just heard another story on NBC news about food waste, and giving as an example that a crate of 360 eggs for commercial use is not packaged the same way as eggs going to a grocery store are - just a few minutes after I saw a Facebook post from my church’s food pantry, which is still open, that they got a donation like this of fresh eggs and they’re putting out a call for egg cartons of any size.

I have a carton that I was just going to recycle, so that’s where I will take it, along with some tampons I bought on sale yesterday. (That ship has sailed for me, TYVM.)

[bump]

@2Bits

I, for one, think you are onto something.

From USDA.gov:

“In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. This estimate, based on estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010.”

I’ve also read it’s particularly bad in schools. I doubt that 30% of the lunches kids are now eating at home are going in the trash.

That’s not quite the same thing though; I’m not sure I’d count a half-eaten slice of pizza and a half-drunk carton of milk for a kindergartener as “food waste” when they throw it away.

I think what the OP was getting at is that there’s the perception that demand is constant, and that the restaurant supply channel is almost completely cut off, which implies that there must have been SO much waste that we can supply everyone at home even without that channel. The implication is that somehow we’ve become more efficient as well.

I dispute that- I think what we’re seeing is that a lot of goods were either easily shifted to retail, or are either seasonal, shelf-stable, or not affected by their workforce being infected with COVID-19. Meat, for example, is only relatively easily shifted to retail, but is highly perishable and highly affected by their workforce being infected by COVID-19.

But say… something like pickles or cereal is not. They can be stored for long periods in warehouses, doesn’t take special shipping methods,and isn’t as sensitive to workforce COVID-19 infection. So it’s likely that they keep more on hand in warehouses and can buffer demand spikes easier than the meat industry can. And that’s not even getting into packaging differences.

We see shortages in goods that are either not easily shifted from commercial to retail packaging/supply chains, are sensitive to supply chain disruptions, or that expect constant demand- meat and toilet paper are good examples of both.