Major American Retailers Limiting Purchases Of Food Staples
It’s okay, we’ve got each other…right?
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.
The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who tried to exceed the one-bag cap.
“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.
Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.
An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.
The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.
“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.”
Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of new contract for foreign rice sales.
“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”
Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against future price hikes or a total lack of product.
“There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”
At the moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally.
Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits at Sam’s Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any shortages or limits.
An anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10 50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” he wrote.
For now, rice is available at Asian markets in California, though consumers have fewer choices when buying the largest bags. “At our neighborhood store, it’s very expensive, more than $30” for a 25-pound bag, a housewife from Mountain View, Theresa Esquerra, said. “I’m not going to pay $30. Maybe we’ll just eat bread.”
(NYSun)
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Now it begins…..
April 21st, 2008 at 1:56 pmNothing will start a war between “civiized countries” like not having food. Lets make our corn into fuel! Fracking dummies….
April 21st, 2008 at 2:02 pmThank you Al Gore, bio fuels, carbon foot print, fertilizer=bad. What a bunch of mental midgets!
April 21st, 2008 at 2:16 pmTime to pay up Kaliforinica and west coast liberal f**ktard freaks and you east coast lib bastards—eat shit and die.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:16 pmBetter idea, a new Food for Stability program. Stop selling corn or any other staple to the Saudis or any other terrorist spawning Arab nation. Bet that Oil won’t be all that valuable to them whent their pantry shelves dry up and little Habib starts burning down the house.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:17 pmINSTEAD of oil, or biofuel, LETS BURN DIRTY LIBERALS FOR HEAT! not only would our toes stay warm, but america would be a better place!!!
April 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pmWe really need to find new food sources, and stop being such selfish pigs with our non-renewable food sources.
Why … What will our children do? We’ll have “stuck” them with this problem.
Sorry … wrong thread.
Hey, I feel a growing need to call “bullshit” on this last couple weeks of food alarmism.
Yeah, I know there are areas in strife … But one month ethanol is being pushed as the Fuel Christ of the future … and the next month it’s sucking up all the food?
April 21st, 2008 at 2:40 pmOil for food. Not a bad idea. How much food do the Salifists grow? Bet it ain’t much. I got a never-ending supply of deer meat where I live. Food is the least of our worries. Got plenty of rabbit pheasant, duck and geese too.
F*ck the libs. Let ‘em eat grass.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:41 pmI’m tired of the oil is disappearing BS. Seems like people believe oil is made up of dinosaurs. It isn’t, its all of the vegetation. To me that means petroleum products are renewable.
Mabe we should jack up the price of the staples and tell the Saudis that they should cut back on their pita bread consumption and see how they like it.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:08 pmThere you go Dan. same here, i have enough deer meat in the freezer right now to last quite a while. plus deer jerky. im not worried about this although i hope we’re not giving up our food supply for the ‘pipe dream’ known as ethanol
April 21st, 2008 at 3:16 pm“It’s people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They’re making our food out of people. Next thing they’ll be breeding us like cattle for food.”
April 21st, 2008 at 4:05 pmFirst it was Bushhitler. Then it’s global warming. Then it’s an energy crisis. Then it’s the economy. Now it’s food. What’s going to be the flavor/crisis next month? Give me a break.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:27 pmCan we convert gasoline back to corn and rice?
April 21st, 2008 at 5:26 pmThe people are out of rice in People’s Rep of Kalifornia? Well, let them eat tofu?!!
April 21st, 2008 at 6:21 pmA large part of the blame can be placed on libs around the world, and the dems at home. Environuts prevent us from drilling for Oil, oil and energy prices go up, food productions costs go up. Wheat and barley acerage to corn, corn for ethanol instead of food, because of “Biofuels will be our savior”- again thank the libs, the dems and the MSM. Parts of the run up is attributed to speculators in the market… I wonder if George Soros and his billions have been wrecking havoc on Oil Futures and other commodities, he hates the USA, hates Pres. Bush - couldn’t defeat him in last election. Soros knows how to manipulate the markets and has his useful idiots including Al Gore and global warming. They couldn’t bring down capitalism one way, but they are having great success now. We need to open up drilling in Alaska and off our coasts. We need to end all subsidies for Biofuels. We need to investigate for those that may be manipulating the markets to contribute to the problems. Then we may reverse the situation…..But it is all due to the President we will be told by the Dems and MSM.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:59 pmWAR FOR OIL!
April 21st, 2008 at 10:06 pmThe official reason DDT was banned was because of eggshells. The ’science’ backing it up was bullshit, and everyone knew it. The real reason was that the death rate in the third world, especially Africa, started falling. The typical empty-headed protestors might want to save the children, but their elitist masters view the third worlders as subhuman, much as they see us.
Ethanol is just the latest way for the Soros types to spread misery and unrest throughout the world. They are scavangers who feast on chaos. Causing famine is not so much a bug of the green movement, as it is a feature.
They want to tear the world down so they can rebuild it in their own image.
Of course, the fools are extremely short sighted. Look at the Left, and look at the Right. The people in general on each side, not the leaders. If the shit hits the fan and society breaks apart, who do you think will be the ones standing at the end? Who will reshape the world?
I’m a little torn, personally. On the one hand, the complete fracturing of civlilization and breakdown of rule of law is not something I eagerly await. On the other, the chance to finally deal with these freaks in the manner they so richly deserve has a certain appeal.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:48 pm