Long-term storable food shortages

I've been looking to add some variety to my stores of long-term food, and I've noticed that retailers are getting slammed with orders at the same time that stocks are low. It's not up to pre-Y2K levels yet, but Walton Feed has pushed their shipping times out to months instead of weeks. Emergency Essentials (beprepared.com) has removed a lot of their larger package deals from their website, and the guy at Survival Acres (who is, admittedly, wound pretty tightly) is threatening in his blog to close up shop due to an avalanche of orders. He is still buried even after setting the minimum order level at $500!

Are more people paying attention to the news? Is this panic buying? I think the shortages and higher wheat prices play into it a little bit, but these places seem to be selling out of food at any price.

Interesting times.

Anyone want a case of IDF gasmasks? My local survivalist can't give the things away now.

I think that the "panic factor" is certainly kicking in. What amazes me is that a lot of people are buying stuff they normally wouldn't eat in large quantities. Think about the person who buys 50 lbs of Jasmine rice. Isn't that about 800 - 1000 servings?

Also many of the people buying the MRE's and large amts of freeze-dried food normally don't eat those foods. It could be that many of those bulk purchases end up on ebay or get thrown out because of improper storage.

Don't get me wrong - my wife and I store extra food, but we purchased food we normally eat and a little extra at a time. It doesn't take that long to build up a "safety margin" in case times get rough.

For people who normally eat rice, 50 pounds is nothing. Throw in some growing boys to the mix and that 50 pounds goes very quickly.

Not all kinds of rice of in short supply. California-grown medium grain rice (which I eat) seems to be in its usual, plentiful supply. The price might be up a bit, but that's not particularly alarming since everything else has been going up, too. However, as anyone who eats rice knows, there's a big difference between eating plain old long grain vs basmati vs Jasmine vs medium grain rice, so simply switching varieties is not as easy an option as it might seem.

I was working in Japan more than ten years ago when they had a national shortage of their normal short grain rice. I forget if it was just bad weather for that year or something. Anyway, a lot of long grain rice from Thailand was imported, but the Japanese wouldn't touch the stuff (it tastes/smells and cooks different). The government had to order that all short grain inventory had to be blended with the imported rice, otherwise people would've gobbled up all the short grain rice in short order, and then had no rice left until the next rice harvest that they would want to buy/eat. Eek, can you imagine sushi with the wrong kind of rice? That's like only being able to eat donuts made of whole wheat flour!

Two words:

Pan
Nic

I feel my cynicism boiling up....

....getting ready to spew....

With this kind of 'panic', people are not required to think, but they're sure they can buy their way out of the problem.

Sue

Panic buying here does seem an odd response to food shortages in the third world. The most significant nutritional problem in this country, regardless of socio-economic status, is obesity. We have lots of cheap food, but not good food. Associated with that, we expend billions of dollars of disposable income on diet gimmicks, exercise equipment, bottled water (still more expensive than gasoline) and designer coffee-all triumphs of perceived need created by the marketing industry.

I am starting to get more Instant Potatoes into my inventory.

I am also adding cans of Spaghetti and tomato sauce since they can both be quite versatile. I have been adding pasta to my stores.

Canned meats that are in the inventory include: Spam, Roast Beef, Ham, Chicken Breast, Slim Jims, and Dried Beef.

All MRE's are reserved for training (camping, hiking) and Bugging Back Home {I just invented a new acronym - BbH}

BbH: Bugging back Home - making the trip from your workplace to your home.

Due to the latest news info, I am also increasing the amount of Cooking Oil and Flour that I had been keeping on hand.

"...bottled water (still more expensive than gasoline)..."

Maybe in Chicago!!!

We purchased a 50lb bag of Jasmine rice for the first time last week, but we probably have been eating about 5 lbs of jasmine rice a month. My wife cooks up rice with many of the meals she prepares. For us it made sense to simply step up to a 10 month supply from a one month supply - regardless of where the price is going. If this is a short-term panic buy, then we should see the prices drop in the coming months. If everyone stocked up then no one will be buying for several months.

I'm with Wildman and pasta sauce - it is a great base that can go so many directions. We too added cooking oils and wheat this week.

I keep some of this Parmalat Milk in the pantry. It tastes pretty much like fresh milk and has a great shelf life until opened.

My wife was somewhat reluctant to keep a good stock of food on hand when we got married, but she is coming around to the idea of having most of the basics on hand at all times - it makes for easier shopping. My goal is to generally maintain about a month of food and the means to prepare it on hand for a bug in.