Everybody is out of asparagus? You can switch in any number of mentioned products and the idea is the same. Everybody did not need bananas/celery/asparagus coincidentally at the same time. It’s cover.
Santa Cruz, CA. Last night the huge Capitola Safeway had no, repeat NO chicken or hamburger; 40 foot coffin fridges completely empty. The butcher’s comment was, “people have lost their minds!” I didn’t check for TP, but the woman in front of me at the checker was buying 48 rolls on top of the overflowing cart of other things. I was hoping to get some laundry bleach for, you know, laundry – fat chance. Truly, the stupid is rampant at the moment.
Lucked out on the TP, I guess. Last time we bought it at Cosco was a couple of weeks ago, before everyone lost their minds. There were still some rolls under the sink, so we have a full brick of the stuff. We also happened to restock our spaghetti, tomato sauce and chicken stock on that trip, so we’re in good shape. In addition, we keep an emergency stash of canned and dry food in the RV in the case of a major seismic event or other short term disaster, so we shouldn’t have to mingle with the masses for some time, other than for milk and bread.
Bananas are easy to explain: People are going to be stuck at home with bored needy children while still being expected to telework. Bananas are a snack even the youngest can manage on their own.
I find the water confusing too. Even in Wuhan the water and electrical supply never faltered. I can only surmise that folks checked their disaster preparedness list and bought everything on it. Maybe they think this will be our SHTF event.
Personally, I don’t think it will be bad for more than a couple of months. I’ve been stocking the larder, and thinking ahead about protein, fiber, and vitamins. With everyone working from home the groceries are liable to fly out of the pantry. We are well stocked now, and will join a CSA this year to b sure we’ll have fresh food if this continues into the Summer.
I absolutely do expect logistics breakdowns to occur. The Department of Commerce has been utterly silent. This is ridiculous. As each State makes it’s own rules to fill the vacuum from the Fed, the interstate trucking industry could easily falter. At a minimum, they could be forced to drive around certain jurisdictions, slowing the arrival of products. I expect stores on the edge to go under, and imported goods to be at a premium.
Enjoy your bananas while you can; they don’t grow in CONUS.
Woke up a little before 5 this morning and decided to make my weekly WinCo run a couple hours early. At 5:30 the parking lot was over half full. Grabbed a cart from the corral (my usual practice, and a good move because there were none in the cart garage at the entrance). Got in and found that more than a few people had two carts piled high; at least one had three. General impression was a Biblical plague of locusts.
As expected, no hand sanitizer or liquid hand soap. Produce was pretty much picked clear, as were any number of frozen items — in places the stockers didn’t bother unpacking the cartons, just cut them open and stuffed them in the freezer.
The store had signs all over about limits on things like TP, paper towels and water (as has been noted above: why hoard water, do people think the virus will clog pipes?) so they had a pretty fair supply. Of course, the signs don’t stop idiocy: while I was waiting to check out I heard at least four people being told they had to turn something back; one tried to argue, apparently she thought she had a Constitutional right to buy as much as she wanted.
The chain’s website said that for the next two weeks “some locations” will be closed from midnight to 5 so they can restock. Tells me that either there were so many people were on the floor that the stockers couldn’t work, or perhaps there were some numbskulls bird-dogging the stockroom doors so they could pounce as soon as stuff came out.
Went to Costco last night for “non-essentials.” Found everything we needed. On the other hand, we saw empty pallets in all of the food aisles. The bread aisle was bone dry. Same for TP and paper towels.
Went to WinCo for a few things today around 11am. Looks like a war zone. Checking out a friend was running the register. He got called in for the 5am opening. (The store is normally open 24 hours.) There were 250 people waiting to get in at 5am. The register lines went to the back of the store until just before I arrived. The store will close a midnight tonight and reopen at 7am so the night shift can restock without interruption.
He told me if this panic buying does not stop by midweek, the WinCo warehouses will be empty. I pushed and he said means no food at all for several weeks in stores.
We are in Mexico right now and arriving home tomorrow night, so have had no opportunity to panic shop. The freezer and panty are in good shape (I think we have 20+ lbs. of dried beans and lentils under normal circumstances), and we should be fine even for perishables for at least a week or two. I can bake my own bread, etc., but the home garden is going to be more important than usual this year.
Have any of you tried smaller local and/or ethnic markets? How were they? We have lots in our neighborhood. Or places like beauty supply stores for disinfectants/aloe vera gel/alcohol/peroxide?
Yeah, I was at Target last night and finally saw the evidence of hoarding, with the TP, bread, and paper towels wiped out. Luckily, my wife sent me out for napkins which, oddly, there were plenty of. Everything else seemed relatively okay – I did note a run on feminine hygiene products and, for some reason, plain Cheerios were cleared off the shelves. All the other cereals, including Honey Nut Cheerios, seemed fine. Staples were relatively untouched. I bough an extra 5 pound bag of flour just in case.
Meanwhile, this afternoon I was at the local convenience/discount store, and there was plenty of TP there. Two rolls for a buck. It was some no-name brand I had never heard of and don’t remember, but there was no shortage of toilet paper or paper towels there. I did not check the hand sanitizer/sani-wipes situation though.
My friend went to Costco last Monday and saw a woman shopper in full hazmat bodysuit. (This is in the Seattle area.)
Unlike so many here I did NOT go out today.
I was four days in the meat grinder this week, including 10 hours yesterday. I spent today inside recovering and resting. I did manage to get the dishes done and the laundry, but the parrot cages will have to wait another day. I had a friend stop by for dinner. The way things are going that may be the last visitor I have for some time, who knows? Salmon, rice, carrots, and a bottle of wine - hey, just because there’s a global pandemic doesn’t mean we can’t eat well!
I had plans today, but I realized early on that not a lot was going to get done. I’m sure there’s something I’ve overlooked (there always is) but for now my bunker is well stocked so I opted to rest and de-stress as much as possible.
Tomorrow I go back to a cash register. Wish me luck. I might need it.
I’m in Whole Foods right now. The bread is basically gone… except for hot dog buns and various brioche breads.
All the pasta is gone except for the bullshit hemp pasta etc.
I went to Target today and they had everything but toilet paper. There weren’t even many shoppers. I then went to Kroger (Bartlett, TN) and they were a little low on bread, had no toilet paper or paper towels. I was really hoping to get paper towels, just the regular supply, but I guess I can rely on rags and sponges for cleaning. They were a bit busy but not worse than the usual. I swear though, I’m a really careful shopper when it comes to prices and I could swear they were just a bit higher than usual. Little things like 2 liter cokes being 1.99. The highest I’ve ever seen here is 1.79 and there’s usually some deal to make up for it. My usual bread was marked up 30 cents higher than usual.
But then I ran in to Walmart grocery and it was post-apocalyptic. There were no parking places. People were getting dropped off at the door. There was no more paper of any sort, no cleaning supplies, no bread, no milk, one lone pack of brown organic five dollar a dozen eggs with one cracked egg, and the meat department was about a quarter full. Produce was iffy. What they had was brown, except the bananas… which were bright green. Plenty canned goods and junk food though. I stood in line about 20 minutes in the self-check. Usually you only go there when you have a few items right? There were people with two full baskets at those self-checks and in every line as well.
I’m hoping this whole TP thing dies down soon because I have about a week’s worth left. I really don’t want to get out again either. What a nightmare that was.
The thing about stocking up on toilet paper is just weird. People will not be shitting at an accelerated rate so why the need. Is this what you really need during a collapse of society? Toilet paper?
The manufacturing out-put of toilet paper is fairly stable. It is tuned to the market demand. Sure there is some movement back and forth between brands but the need is stable. People are not suddenly shitting more.
Increasing production would involve adding another paper machine. A huge, block long, multimillion dollar investment, that would take a year of more to even get up and running, for a short term shortage.
The local paper mill runs 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year with only minimal scheduled down time for major maintenance. There is no excess capacity.
It is an artificial shortage. The supply train will briefly run dry, only to be re-filled, as people shit on the over-supply that they have bought.
I was at the supermarket today. They’re out of a lot. Including toilet paper.
Yes I think it’s just the effect of people going from whatever average stock of TP they keep now (there’s a thread on it with lots of people saying not much) to a higher stock level. We generally have a 30 roll pack in reserve plus the one we’re using, the size we buy at Costco. Two person household, we probably don’t use a whole roll per week so our average stock isn’t far short of a year’s worth. If people with a typical stock of just a few weeks stock up it to ~45 weeks that’s going to soak up all production for awhile. OK maybe they won’t increase their stocks that much, probably some weeks till the shortage subsides I’d guess.
It’s not like masks or hand sanitizer where the actual usage rate might also go up a lot semi-permanently.
I went to the Costco to buy a case of the kind of fizzy water they have that I like. They were out, so I bought a handle of Jameson instead. That, they weren’t out of. People’s priorities are weird.
In Australia, where the TP shortage hit hard and early, there is excess production capacity. One of the big suppliers is running a double shift. Eventually we’re going to using TP rolls for lounge furniture.
Yeah I wonder if we’ll get the bounce-back too much production effect in about a month where suddenly canned soup and toilet paper are rolling out of stores with excess inventory, or if it will be like the American ammo shortages of 2014 where ammo became impossible to find for a solid year, then production met demand and while ammo is plentiful now it still is nowhere near as cheap as it was before the panic-buying.
I live alone. I shop at Costco. I have a two year supply of TP. I also have a years worth of coffee filters, two years worth of paper towels, Six years worth of envelopes, and paper, cheap ballpoint pens and pencils. Still have both of the grease pencils I bought three years ago. My two bottles of booze have lasted me a whole year, so far, I might need one or the other before next year. My lime juice is approaching its use by date, and is still half full. I get my coffee on order, comes USPS. Got a years supply of tea leaves I stocked up on condensed milk when I found out Borden’s filed for bankruptcy. (I might not live long enough to run out of that, I only use it for tea.) I am sure I will die with some of the Qtips, and bandaids I have on hand. I do run out of books, now and then, though. I have enough white cotton gloves for drill team, and a couple of boxes of nitrile gloves. I have actually reached the last few weeks worth of Rolled Oats. Got lots of wheat germ, Oat bran, cornmeal, flour, and sugar, molasses, vinegar, mustard, peppercorns, salt, and replaced most of my spices just a year or two ago. Hardly eat the canned food I have, probably ought to check the dates. There’s a half dozen cans of pretty much everything I eat.
Living alone and being a cheapskate eventually makes you a survivalist.
Living with another cheapskate in semi-boonies in PG&E territory tends in that direction too. Even with a generator now, PG&E’s “new normal” of regular power cutoffs has us stay fairly stocked except meds that must be replenished every couple months at least. Plenty of packaged non-perishables, dried vegs, coffee, wine, batteries, guitar strings, TP, etc. Nothing like a Mormon stash but we could stay in for some weeks as long as water (not a problem) and power are available. Or we could drive our little RV to a less remote locale.