diesel $8.88 a gallon here in the uk and Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's , are charging their shoppers 12 per cent more on average for a basket of 25 staple goods compared with last year. in house memo for the company i work for warns that it could get as high as 27% higher than last year and to ajust stock and order to reflect the expected switch to lower quality (own brand)goods from branded goods (heniz etc). from what i am seeing i think 27% is low ball. while crude oil prices may have dropped abit fuel duty has just been raised in the uk budget and is due for another duty increase in october.

Butter prices in Britain rose by 18% last month, while milk rose by 12%. A kilo of peas has gone up from £1.19 to £1.79 at Tesco, a dozen eggs at Sainsbury's has leapt from £1.62 to £2.35, while Asda has increased the price of its orange juice from 73p a litre to 88p.

We do use spelt. While none in our family have a wheat allergy problem, spelt is a great alternative to those who do have allergy problems with wheat. I've seen that spelt does have a higher protein content than wheat, but you can find some hard wheats that are close. The standard sack of bleached white flour from the store won't compare to spelt.

I do have some spelt seeds that I plan to plant soon. I've read though that their hulls need to be separated from the berry - and there are additional steps in processing that are not needed for wheat.

We tried out our grain mill over the weekend for the first time with some red wheat berries and the result were some of the best homemade pancakes we've ever eaten! What a difference!

I can't go to any stores right now because I'm underway on a boat.

Has anyone noticed any more empty shelf spaces since the strike/slowdown started Monday?

I was just at the store about an hour and a half ago, and didn't notice any shortages. However, I have to admit that I don't know where shortages would start to show first, and could have easily missed something. I can say that there didn't appear to be any empty shelves.

I'm thinking food type shortages would show up in dairy products first, then meats, vegetables, bread, and on down. The shorter the shelf life, the more dependent it is on a continuous supply chain. Of course in an immediate shipment stoppage or crisis situation all bets are off as everything would fly off the shelves.

Fresh food is the last thing I'd buy if I thought the store wouldn't be getting more. Get the stuff with a good shelf life.

Canned food
Powdered milk
preserves
etc

According to the NY Sun, food shortages are showing up in this country.

Perhaps we should do like other producers,,QUIT EXPORTING OUR PRODUCE!!!! Wow,,what a concept, save food products that are needed to feed ourselves??????

"...QUIT EXPORTING OUR PRODUCE..."

I'd vote for you for President!!!

Of course, all of our farmland that is owned by foreign governments might mess up your idea...

I dunno, if I was a farmer I think I'd want to sell my products any damn place I wanted to. The market should correct any situation where we would need to sell food domestically instead of exporting.

We have a recent addition to the many different chains of supermarkets up here near DC. The recent addition is a chain store called Wegman's. They do things a little differently than other stores and have food stocked by Regions or Ethnicities. The Asian, Indian, and Mexican/South American sections were running very low on rice. The American Food Section (for lack of what to call it with it's Rice -a- Roni and such LOL) was running low on regular bagged rice, but had a lot of boxed, quick rice selections still available.

After seeing what I saw at Wegmen's, I went to Costco to get a look at what they had. Costco was down to their last five 25lb bags of long grain enriched white, two of which were snapped up as I sat there watching. Also, they had about ten 10lb bags of basmati rice left on a palate in the middle of the isle. Other than that, they were completely out of bulk bagged rice. They had added a palate of Uncle Ben's flavored Microwave Rice variety packs, but it was about $7.99 for six two-serving packs. On a side note I overheard the person at check out mention that customers were only allowed 2 bags per check-out.

I didn't check any of the other local supermarkets, but may do so tomorrow just out of curiosity.