>>Who dat?
This guy:
Posted on 04/23/2008 7:32:50 PM PDT by blam
Wal-Mart bans bulk sales of rice
By Our Foreign Staff
Last Updated: 2:42am BST 24/04/2008
The American supermarket chain Wal-Mart yesterday banned bulk sales of rice at its cash-and-carry businesses, as the global food shortage and soaring price of food began to make an impact in the largest consumer nation.
The company's bulk supply division, Sam's Club, announced that it would sell a maximum of four bags of rice to each customer, after Costco, a rival chain, said it would place caps on some rice and flour sales in California.
The limits were imposed after some customers, apparently alarmed by the soaring prices for staple foods, made unusually large bulk purchases after the price of rice in some stores doubled in the past month.
While there was little evidence of "panic" buying, some restaurants and smaller retailers were buying up large stocks in the expectation that prices would soar higher.
Wal-Mart's regular stores, used by millions of Americans, are not subject to the restriction.
"What you're seeing is people who buy in larger quantities, who have a restaurant or a corner store, stocking up because of media reports that prices could go higher," said Dave Heylen, a spokesman for the Californian Grocers' Association.
A statement issued by Sam's Club said the limits were imposed "due to recent supply and demand trends".
James Sinegal, the chief executive of Costco, said the firm would limit only very big purchases.
Any customer wanting 10 pallets of flour probably would be told they could have only one pallet, he said.
Make room for okra and parsnips.
Yes but hardly there yet (at least in America). We haven’t begun to seriously feel it like other places. We are just getting used to $4 gas.
I’ve started to hoard pickles and easter peeps in my closet.
Then I read on FR how this one guy is hoarding mothballs so I thought I’d better jump on that bandwagon too before it is too late. Sams had to turn me away when I tried to walk off with 600 pounds of them
Oops one minute my tin foil hat fell off. I’ve been wearing it ever since the media informed me the aliens have made contact with phoenix, AZ/
Yum...Easter Peeps and mothballs.
Sure, how else do you get Rice Futures to rise in value—just cause a rice panic!
That's true about a lot of things these days.
Rice doesn’t cost all that much, esp. to someone on a panic-buying spree. The store knows what the bell curve is for sales of product X: most people buy about N of them at a time, and there’s a standard deviation D indicating how much a normal “large buy” is by the rare single customer. Thing is, the panic-buy customer can afford to wipe the store out of a single product (buying ALL the X in one store doesn’t cost _that_ much to a motivated customer), peeving off other customers who (A) may very well not buy a bunch of other stuff that they would have when they came in for X, and (B) won’t go to the store for X next time because there wasn’t any last time. Sales of a given product affect sales of other products, and fluke buys (esp. if the buyer is likely to ultimately just throw it all out because they bought a stupid huge amount of a perishable product) can reasonably be barred (by the store, not the gov’t mind you) as ultimately derimental to sales.
Upshot: if being sold out of something had no ripple effect, the store would be happy to sell all of it. However, as being sold out of something DOES tend to affect immediate and future sales well beyond selling out one product all at once, and the store is interested in maximizing profits, they can reasonably bar the fluke buyer from screwing up the cash flow.
Additionally, pricing & availability of some items is sometimes decided SPECIFICALLY to draw people in so they’ll buy other stuff. Doesn’t help to put in a “loss leader” price or product, only to have the whole stock of it walk out the door minutes after it’s available. The point was to make MORE money, not LOSE money.
Besides, the “limit N per customer” rule is acceptably circumvented by just getting back in line again.
Many on this thread are complaining that it’s a fake crisis, whipped up for news or political influence or commodities profiteering. Maybe it is.
As you note, he “just in time” logistical model IS a problem: a single fluke can screw up broad availability, whether caused by malfunction, malice, or a bogus news story.
Staple grains are cheap and stable. A large sack of grain costs little more than a nice dinner out, can feed several far longer, lasts a long time, can affordably be tossed if not needed after all, and will probably persuade to a better diet at lower cost anyway.
A big surge in demand can sure strain the limits of “just in time” logistics. Likewise, a big drop in supply can occur easily. Rice scarcity being a bogus story or not, we’re being reminded that buffering consumables is no longer in the system - it’s up to YOU.
LOL! I bought extra Honey last year and I never use the stuff. Honey, BTW is one of the few foods that never go bad.
I'm curious about all the warnings we've received in the past couple of years. Individually, they seem small - collectively, it gets a little scarier.
this was pretty commonplace back in the 70s
once the gasoline lines started (price controls), then the turmoil spread to lots of consumer items
toilet paper was a one funny one
the internet era may make it worse now since any goofball rumor or observation can spread virally in a few hours
Indeed it can.
Immediately after Hurricane Katrina blew thru, there were rumors that the gas pipeline to Atlanta would be shut down for repairs. In mere hours, there were lines at every gas station, many/most ran out of gas, the GA governor issued a state of emergency to freeze gas prices*, and I didn’t go to work the next day because I didn’t know if I’d have/find enough gas to get home or deal with emergencies.
And that was just a rumor.
(* - My Canadian wife found the “state of emergency” cynically amusing, because the “outrageously high” gas prices had mearly reached Canadian levels.)
The shortages are very real. Many factors can be attributed to this gap in supply and demand. However, I do not think US consumers have anything to worry about though, the world may be experiencing shortages, but we are a net exporter of food, our government would stop exports before it would let food prices escalate to the point where it really hurts US consumers.
We bought a big bag of Basmati at Costco a couple months ago and have yet to open it.
Those are natural gas pipelines. You do not have gas, in pipelines, for automobiles going to auto gasoline stations.
So? The rumor “gas pipeline to Atlanta is shutting down” HAD the effect of inducing a run on gasoline stations, which WERE quickly emptied out.
When a rumor causes a run on some product, the validity of the rumor is irrelevant - it’s the actual effect (suppliers running out of it suddenly) that is real & matters.
Re post 55, you are correct but there is a very simple correction avaliable to the seller: price. If there is a run on rice at current prices, obviously you are pricing it too low. Don’t restrict purchases, double the price, and keep increasing the price until you can satisfy demand. If the rice is not selling, start to reduce the price to the point where people will buy it again. Problem solved.
>>Who dat?
This guy:
>>Ok rice is not an american product (more or less). So if there is a problem in supply it is Asia’s problem I would guess.
Actually, there’s quite a bit of it grown here. Tamaki Gold is a pretty nice sushi rice, American brown jasmine is quite nice, etc.
Now, I don’t disagree at all with you media commentary.
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