There has been plenty of hype regarding the novel
coronavirus that causes covid-19 in all the local and national news. I work in
the food distribution industry and we’ve been feeling the effects of a panicked
population buying absolutely everything in every grocery store in our region. It’s similar to
when a snowstorm hits Portland or Seattle – all stores will post record sales
for the day and clear their vendors out of every single product and then the
vendors are left scrambling to replenish the inventory, which usually comes
from far away and takes half a week to get here. At this point, customers are
over-stocked in their pantries and then sales will be in a slump, so the net
effect on bottom-line dollars for stores is nil, but nil with a good dose of
panic-scramble built in. I heard another sales rep in the office talking with a
customer about Jared Diamond’s Collapse book, wherein he writes about
how our food distribution system would likely fail in the event of a prolonged
disaster since we all depend on a fragile chain of hand-offs, from the point of
production (Mexico, Peru, Argentina, California, Texas) consolidated at multiple
pickup points, moved by truckers (who may or may not quit at anytime and go to
any other company that offers more $$) and then finally it’s all dependent on oil
and gas to fuel the whole operation. If any one of those links goes down… there
will be delays. If your consolidation warehouse in L.A. accidentally loses your
pallet of ginger, turmeric and cherimoya, you’re SOL. Cucumbers, celery,
cauliflower – these all sound like mundane vegetables, but are among the most
volatile produce commodities, ‘cuz they’re staples and sometimes, farms run out
of their crop sooner than planned. Can you imagine planning in Septmber for how much cauliflower, cucumbers and celery you'll need in March? No one really knows, ever. You can’t put those things in cold storage a month ahead of time like
apples, potatoes, onions and yams. Cucumbers might be $16 wholesale last week
but they’re $59 this week. Customers almost don’t care, at least not in the Northwest,
‘cuz they don’t even look at the price most times – they need cauliflower for
that recipe, whoops, it’s $5.99 right now, still need it. Imagine if beer was
$8.99 one week and $15.99 the next – there might be riots.
I guess the moral of the story is that sickness, panic and
chaos is good for business. Never mind the human toll. Steinbeck’s East of
Eden touches on this, when the character Cal goes into business with Will
Hamilton and they have a farmer plant acres and acres of beans in the year
leading up to World War I, anticipating the food shortages since war is imminent.
The financiers also lock in a low price of 2.5 cents per lb to the farmer – at the
time, it sounds like a better-than-market price, but as this thread in the
story plays out, we find out that they export the beans at 12 cents per lb to
Britain after the War starts, making a killing. Do you wonder if there are people making similar
wagers during our time of uncertainty in the early 21st century? I
wonder what bets they are placing.
I’m one of the privileged – my pantry is stocked, we have
enough vitamin C, elderberry and zinc lozenges and could probably feed the
family on rice, beans and canned tomatoes for a few weeks if not a month. Beyond that, we’d be forced to fish the
local waters and scavenge dandelion greens while we wait for our yard garden to
grown some food. I hope it doesn’t come to that.
I made this happy little song last night: Deth Virus
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