What's Up With the Food Supply?
ggs are $6.22 a flat (of 18 — up from $2.60 less than two months ago); Eggs are $6.22 a flat (of 18 — up from $2.60 less than two months ago); there is no heavy cream available, anywhere; seems every day there’s a recall for food contamination — listeria, salmonella, lead content…
Eggs have been this high before, during covid. It coincided with a massive bird flu epidemic that resulted in millions of chickens being “culled” (eupemism).
Cream was a surprise — I went to Walmart to replenish the stock and… none. Went to the local Kroger store: same. I had no idea, but a Google search revealed that, indeed, cream was non-existent in the stores. The causes seemed to be diverse and non-specific, but it’s happened.
Cinnamon has been in the news, lately — seemingly lead contamination. The latter based on a Consumer Reports study, but another article in Ars Technica points out that it’s really a non-issue: you have to consume a number of tablespoons of the substance for it to affect you, even in the worst offenders.
(The cinnamon reporting is probably a case of “manufacturing the news” — a reporting over-reach just to make headlines.)
But the other issues are real. It seems listeria is showing up in everything — lunch meats, vegetables, you name it.
That’s pretty disconcerting in that it takes a number of reported cases — some resulting in deaths — to a) bring it to the attention of the authorities and b) track it down to the source.
The Boar’s Head example seems to be the most disconcerting. It’s considered a higher end product with presumably higher end procedures and health practices in place to avoid such a problem. Reports are that visited facilities were grossly unclean, but those could have been hit pieces.
Still, the contamination was real and not overblown.
What’s Happening?
A good question.
Bird flu seems to be getting more virulent. There have been reports of it not only jumping species, but getting contracted (in humans) without any animal contact.
We likely can’t do anything about that — fortunately, the good news is that from hatchling to egg-laying only takes about six weeks, so it doesn’t take too much time for the “culled” chickens to be replaced and concommitant prices to return to somewhat normal levels.
The listeria contaminations are much more troubling: they can only happen as a result of unsanitary conditions at production facilities. That, in turn, likely stems from labor incompetence which, in turn again, likely results from high turnover and a less-than-consciencious workforce.
There are plenty of reports extant that the current generation moving into the workforce (millenials) are less committed to the quality of their work, much less committed to schedules, much less open to direction, and much less likely to stay on the job if they decide said job conflicts with their lifestyle expectation or values.
If true (and it seems to be), we seem to be entering the later stages of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged storyline, where things start breaking down because of an increasingly incompetent, unqualified, and disconnected workforce. In the story’s case, trains crash. For us, not only do trains crash but airplanes fall out of the sky.
And we start to see shortages of commodities.
What To Do?
For the listeria and salmonella and other contaminations, about the only thing we can do (short of growing and harvesting everything ourselves) is to keep a close eye on the news and watch for recalls. Then, scan your refrigerator and if you have anything listed in the recall, get rid of it.
But, you have to read some of the stories like the cinnamon reports with a critical eye: sometimes they’re hit pieces written to elevate their relevance at the expense of those working within normal bounds — witness the hamburger “pink slime” reports that were reported in breathless earnestness a few years ago. It turned out that the meat industry was following best practices and the “pink slime” additive was simply processing byproducts that were added back into the end product to reconstitue consistency and flavor.
By not being knowledgable about the industry, writing to inflame their own sensibilities and set off alarms with other non-knowleable people, the reporting went over the top and was irresponsible at best.
Shortages are another matter. You really only have two choices: either bear with it and presume the supply chain will straighten out in a reasonable amount of time, or stock up.
There have been many advocates of keeping a year’s worth of food storage, from the Mormon church to survivalists. A tactic usually ascribed to loony headed extremists in the land of plenty.
But, if the land of plenty becomes the land of scarcity, it’s not so loony-headed.
Maybe what we’re seeing is simply tremors in the supply chain.
Then again, maybe they’re precursors to a new normal, one where outages, shortages, and inflated prices are the new norm.
As far as inflation is concerned, frankly, food costs in the US are much less than in other countries. In Europe or even our own neighbor Canada, for instance, food accounts for a significantly greater portion of one’s income. Even with inflation, US food prices are still pretty low.
Still, if you’re feeding a family of four, the increases can be significant.
If food prices get too far out of hand, then again, we’re faced with two choices: eat less (or cheaper), or make more money. A second job, side hustle, whatever.
At least, those are solutions for the short term.
For the long term, there will have to be wholesale societal changes — especially as regards economic education. We’re on the long slide to socialism (the economic philosophy that others should provide for one’s needs) that seems to be getting more attractive, especially to those millenials that are non-committed to work. There needs to be more incentive for people to work, rather than incentives for them to figure out how to work the system so they don’t have to.
And we need to pay less attention to the whiners. There will always be whiners. Whiners don’t contribute to the well-being of anybody. They just whine about how everything is unfair, how they’re victims of “the system”, racism, economic privilege or whatever.
Or they whine on behalf of others — others that were likely not necessarily unhappy to begin with. But, they’re advocates (agitators), and they see it as their duty to inform the “poor unfortunates” just how unhappy they are, and how they’d be much happier if only they could loot others to get what they “deserve”.
They are not part of the solution. They are the problem, and will continually advocate to perpetuate the problem with loud publicity, votes, etc., until it all comes falling down.