Posted on 04/14/2020 7:59:33 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
Most Americans were not aware food consumption in the U.S. was a 60/40 proposition. Approximately 60% of all food was consumed “outside the home” (or food away from home), and 40% of all food consumed was food “inside the home” (grocery shoppers).
Food ‘outside the home’ included: restaurants, fast-food locales, schools, corporate cafeterias, university lunchrooms, manufacturing cafeterias, hotels, food trucks, park and amusement food sellers and many more. Many of those venues are not thought about when people evaluate the overall U.S. food delivery system; however, this network was approximately 60 percent of all food consumption on a daily basis.
The ‘food away from home‘ sector has its own supply chain. Very few restaurants and venues (cited above) purchase food products from retail grocery outlets.
As a result of the coronavirus mitigation effort the ‘food away from home’ sector has been reduced by 75% of daily food delivery operations. However, people still need to eat. That means retail food outlets, grocers, are seeing sales increases of 25 to 50 percent, depending on the area.
The retail consumer supply chain for manufactured and processed food products includes bulk storage to compensate for seasonality. As Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently noted “there are over 800 commercial and public warehouses in the continental 48 states that store frozen products.”
Here is a snapshot of the food we had in storage at the end of February: over 302 million pounds of frozen butter; 1.36 billion pounds of frozen cheese; 925 million pounds of frozen chicken; over 1 billion pounds of frozen fruit; nearly 2.04 billion pounds of frozen vegetables; 491 million pounds of frozen beef; and nearly 662 million pounds of frozen pork.
This bulk food storage is how the total U.S. consumer food supply ensures consistent availability even with weather impacts. As a nation we essentially stay one harvest ahead of demand by storing it and smoothing out any peak/valley shortfalls. There are a total of 175,642 commercial facilities involved in this supply-chain across the country
Few Americans are aware of this. However, that stored food supply is the supply-chain for food manufacturers who process the ingredients into a variety of branded food products and distribute to your local supermarket. That bulk stored food, and the subsequent supply chain, is entirely separate from the fresh food supply chain used by restaurants, hotels, cafeterias etc. For almost 8 weeks the retail supply chain has been operating beyond capacity and the burn rate of raw food products is up a stunning 40 percent.
Those bulk warehouses, the feeder pools for retail/consumer manufactured food products, are starting to run low. Believe me: (1) we don’t want to find out what happens when those 800 mass storage facilities run out; and (2) the food supply chain will be a big part of President Trump’s decision-making on reopening the economy thereby re-opening restaurants, cafeterias, etc…. and switching consumption back to fresh supply. This “bigger picture” is not being considered by politically-minded governors, DC politicians, and public health-centric advisors who focus exclusively on the virus.
Additionally, there are very specific issues within each supply chain (commercial and consumer). It is not as easy as people think to move the commercial supply-chain (restaurants etc.) into the consumer supply chain (grocers). First, there are simply packaging capacity issues. Additionally, there’s an entirely different set of regulations on the processing side for the consumer supply chain.
One dairy farmer helps explain:
Are we dumping milk because of greed or low demand, no. It’s the supply chain, there are only so many jug fillers, all were running 24/7 before this cluster you-know-what.
Now demand for jug milk has almost doubled. However, restaurant demand is almost gone; NO ONE is eating out. Restaurant milk is distributed in 2.5 gal bags or pint chugs; further, almost 75 percent of milk is processed into hard products in this country, cheese and butter. Mozzarella is almost a third of total cheese production; how’s pizza sales going right now??
A bit of history – Years ago (40+) every town had a bottler, they ran one shift a day, could ramp up production easily. Now with all the corporate takeovers (wall street over main street) we are left with regional “high efficiency” milk plants that ran jug lines 24/7 before this mess, no excess capacity.
Jug machines cost millions and are MADE IN CHINA. Only so many jugs can be blown at a jug plant. We farmers don’t make the jugs, damn hard to ramp up production.
I’m a dairy farmer, believe me NO dairyman likes dumping milk; and so far there is NO guarantee they will get paid. Milk must be processed within 48 hours of production and 24 hours of receipt in the plant or it goes bad. Same with making it into cheese and butter, and neither stores well for long.
The same supply line problems exists where restaurants are supplied with bulk 1 pound blocks of butter or single serv packs or pats; and cheese is sold in 10 to 20 pound bags (think shredded Mozzarella for pizza). Furthermore, it is not legal for this end of the supply chain to sell direct to consumers in most states.
Take cheddar cheese for instance; it goes from mild to sharp to crap in storage. Butter, frozen, only stores for so long and then must be slowly thawed and processed into other uses as it gets “strong”. At Organic Valley we cook it down into butter oil or ghee for cooking. We are headed for the same problem with canned veggies. The vast majority of produce comes off and is processed in season; canned or frozen. The supply is already in cans for the season; restaurants use gallon cans or bulk bags of frozen produce.
At some point we will run out of consumer sized cans in stock because home size sales are up (40%+) and restaurant sales are almost nonexistent. Fresh produce out of U.S. season comes from Mexico (different climate). I’m talking sweet corn, green beans, peas, tomatoes, all veggies are seasonal in the USA. Fresh, out-of-season, row crops are imported. (There are exceptions, like hydroponic grown, but small amount of total).
Someone mentioned “time to raid all those bins of corn”. Those bins on the farm contain yellow corn, cattle feed and totally unfit for human consumption, now or at harvest.
Eggs? Same problem. Bakeries and restaurants of any size use Pullman egg cases, 30 dozen at a pop, 30 eggs to a flat, 12 flats to a case. There are only so many 1 dozen egg cartons available and only so many packing machines. Industrial bakeries and processors of packaged food buy bulk liquid eggs, no carton at all. Also in many states it is illegal to sell this supply-chain directly to consumers.
On your standard buffet of any size, do you really think they boil eggs and peel them? They come in a bag, boiled and diced; those nice uniform slices of boiled egg you see on your salad, a lot of them come in tubes boiled and extruded at the same time, just unwrap and slice. Your scrambled eggs come in a homogenized bag on most buffets. Another example of Main Street being gutted and “improved by wall street” NO local egg processors available or many small egg producers either, all corporate and huge, contracted to sell to the corporate masters.
This is a warning the same problems exist in all supply chains.
THanks for the ping :-)
Realize too that besides diary dumping milk, there have been vegetable farmers plowing under crops,
meat processing plants are closing due to coronovavirus infection among workers, etc., etc.
The entire food supply chain is there and remains intact;
there should not be food shortages according to the media.
The main issue is getting the crop transported to the consumer in convenient packaging .
Even more for us.
Looks like we're not average either.
No, not the whole story and the author shot down his own points throughout the article.
My grocer has been low or out of milk for decades. Yes, poor management right here in Texas. Send us the milk.
The author wrote plastic gallon milk cartons are made in China. Instead of dumping milk, pour it into those little school milk cartons sitting in warehouses not being used. Use what you have. The article even says kids are drinking milk at home so that defeats his argument there isn’t a school milk sales outlet. Home milk consumption takes up the slack from school milk.
Those who home can would be glad to have those large restaurant canned vegetables to re-can at home if they were available to the regular customer at the lower unit price it is sold to restaurants. Advertise and they will come.
As for foods already going bad in freezers - oh, puleese. It’s been all of two months at most. My freezer is stuffed with food that’s been frozen for a year.
I didn’t eat out 99% of the time before the virus so don’t put that problem on me.
It’s not all people eating out at Chez Ritz. Lots of meals are eaten at McDonalds, Applebees, Waffle House, the school cafeteria, the corporate cafeteria, etc.
I had read another article on this subject that said 50-50, vs. 60-40. Close enough. Now it’s probably 20-80, or 15-85.
We were probably 50-50. We ate out or did take out a lot. Now 100% prepared at home.
I think we’re past the people stocking up the pantry phase, we’re now into the supply chain logistics adjusting to the new normal phase. I went to Kroger last Sunday morning. It was pretty good. Produce selection was excellent. Paper products aisle was pretty empty, but they had some. I didn’t need any.
Many of the schools around here are doling out food for the kiddies one day a week, often giving out 10 meals per kid (1 breakfast, 1 lunch per day per week).
There are several copy cat recipes for your sub.
I’m partial to another restaurant sandwich and found the perfect copy cat recipe online including their super simple no-kneed bun. Homemade makes 5 sandwiches for the cost of one at the window and that’s not counting the hour of wasted time and gas to drive there. Homemade is my germs.
The machines that make the one gallon jugs are made in Red China. The actual jugs are made in the US.
Cream has a shelf life of a month or so. Some cheeses have a very long shelf life. Butter also has a long shelf life and even longer frozen. The low fat milk that’s left from cream can be make into low fat ice cream, yogurt, canned and made into powdered milk.
Not saying there isn’t an across the board problem with the entire supply chain but there needs to be more out of the box thinking.
I would not re-can already canned veggies.
They lose so much quality in the process. Might as well go for fresh and just do it once.
On the bright side, spring is coming and those of us who are prone to canning are also the ones who are most likely prone to grow it ourselves so we can process the food as fresh as possible.
“””a lot of hard boiled eggs come in tubes boiled and extruded at the same time, just unwrap and slice”””
Something like 40 years ago a friend told me about his tour of the United Airlines food preparation facility at San Francisco Airport.
That was when I first learned how airlines mass produce a million slices of hard boiled eggs. And I have never forgotten that story.
Last week Walmart was limiting milk gallons to one per purchase but they have since removed that limitation.
We haven't tried a carryout lately, can't say how it is here in Ocala-land.
You share those 30 dozen eggs with just 2 neighbors. That’s 10 dozen each. Raw eggs have a long shelf life in the fridge past the expiration date. Put 4 dozen in the fridge and 6 dozen in the freezer. Those in the freezer can be stored as scrambled for baking or frozen in ice cube trays as whole eggs for your sunny side up breakfasts.
Or pickle them.
Focus on eating down your fridge foods first. Then the freezer. Last, the pantry foods which don’t need electricity.
All the better.
Haven't tried Firehouse subs or Jimmy Johns (they're not very close and JM's is 10 miles away - serious boondocks here!!)
The last order I made from the grocer went half unfilled.
CSA is a good thing to be a member off about now. We’ve got three hens so as long as I can but feed for them, we’re good on eggs. I’m planting a good sized garden this year. Just finished up 12 acres of fence for meat goats. Terrain is too rough and 12 acres isn’t really big enough for cattle. Picked up a couple of does the other day. $400 each, I hope we don’t have to eat them LOL. Need to get a buck and we’ll get 3-4 kids next year. Does from them can be bred back to the buck. Got kiko does because they’re low maintenance and I’m getting a 75% boer - 25% kiko buck to put on top of them. Should help add weight gain to kids. Eventually, the goat operation will be a small stream income for us but we have eaten goat before. Not much different than venison.
Then divide it up and freeze it.
I don’t know that I’d want to bring home fresh produce that has been handled and coughed on. I quit buying leafy greens back in January. Sandwiches are boring without lettuce but so be it. If it couldn’t be washed well, peeled and cooked, it wasn’t purchased.
My last day at the store was 1 month and 1 day ago. I still have some fresh produce. It may have lost some nutrients but beats going to the germy store.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.