"No man is an island, unto himself".
So very true. The West coast longshoremen decided to take a day off on Friday. Unfortunately, that was the day the Hawaiian barge was in dock to be off loaded and restocked with goods and fresh food for the Islands. There wasn't enough labor to off load the empties. In turn some of the distributors did not get their cans back to reload them or have a way to get the cargo in the warehouses loaded back onto the barge. The first and last things that are unloaded and loaded on to the barge are perishables.
The workers went back to work today, but the barge had to leave on time with what they had to stay on schedule. This means in about 4-5 days the barge will arrive with fewer goods and food.
90% of our goods and services are brought in by barge. We have to pay twice the shipping because we have to pay to ship the goods here and to ship the empty containers back. Even though the workers only took one extra night off, it will still impact us because except for air cargo, everything comes by boat. There will be fewer fresh produce and other perishable items like milk, bread (the largest bakery closed because of the pandemic, so the majority of our bread is frozen and shipped), meats, eggs, will probably be harder to find for a couple of weeks.
Before Matson switched to containerization, the barges were worked by an army of longshoremen who unloaded the barges by hand trucks and dollies. The longshoremen actually priced themselves out of a job. The rising cost of labor and the work stoppages, drove Matson to make the investment in automation and containerization. Longshoreman strikes usually sent everyone here to run to the store to stock up on toilet paper, salt, and rice. This one day lapse will cause problems for the next couple of weeks. What people are going to do, I don't know. We have lived for so long with empty shelves that maybe people have done some stocking already. Fresh produce at the market now languishes longer, simply because the cost of food is so high, especially produce, that it seems like fewer people are opting to buy fresh produce from the market. I know I would rather pay a little more at the Farmer's market because the produce is not so limp. The meats, dairy, eggs, and frozen foods will probably be emptier for a couple of weeks. The lines at the egg farm will be longer and more people will end up going home after the local eggs are sold out. Local farmers cannot fill the gap and local prices are higher because we have higher production costs.
For myself, if McDonald's runs out of hamburgers and buns again, it won't be that bad. It is better for me to not eat there anyway. I would miss the Costco rotisserie chicken, but I can wait a couple of weeks.
I have a lot of food in my house to last a few months. Paper and cleaning stuff I'm good for longer. I may have to substitute some things or make things with what I have and leave some things out. I still get most of my fresh produce from the garden now anyway. I just have to find more ways to use kale, chard, and Asian greens. I have been trying to do at least one mostly vegetarian meal a week and I have been planning meals around the vegetables instead of proteins for awhile now. In any case, for a couple of weeks we'll all have to get by. I am stocked with staples for any crisis: rice, Spam, and ramen. It is just the price of paradise.
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That’s got to be really hard. We’re not talking a casually distant location that could be managed by anybody with a boat, or even a decent sized boat or a small ship. It really has to be ocean-going level. Same in terms of an airplane.
So you are truly reliant on businesses who have or have access to that kind of shipping operations.
An average individual has almost no chance but to accept what is available.
How do the businesses handle it? How affluent as an individual or business would you have to be to be able to independently call the shots?
Are there any kind of a co-op type of organized efforts? But even then, the situation you described probably would have left them helpless.
Wow. It’s really making me
So you are truly reliant on businesses who have or have access to that kind of shipping operations.
An average individual has almost no chance but to accept what is available.
How do the businesses handle it? How affluent as an individual or business would you have to be to be able to independently call the shots?
Are there any kind of a co-op type of organized efforts? But even then, the situation you described probably would have left them helpless.
Wow. It’s really making me
"It is just the price of paradise."
So much of the income for those in Hawaii is from tourism. I have a long-time friend whose son and family are taking their 2nd vacation in Hawaii. He seems so happy! I think that today, they are on their way back to the Pacific NW but he will be coming back with lots of memories of a good time.
This morning, I did some "street-view travel" on the other side of the continent at the port in Quebec City, Canada. The grain elevators are lined up as far as one can see! I have always lived where there is an abundance of agriculture and food production. Gardening? For some people, it must seem trivial. Growing much of your own food? Good for you, Imafan26!
Steve
as a kid, I thought that my destiny was to be a farmer. it was not to be. my family was a part of what the demographers call "rural flight." my response has been to be a gardener.
So much of the income for those in Hawaii is from tourism. I have a long-time friend whose son and family are taking their 2nd vacation in Hawaii. He seems so happy! I think that today, they are on their way back to the Pacific NW but he will be coming back with lots of memories of a good time.
This morning, I did some "street-view travel" on the other side of the continent at the port in Quebec City, Canada. The grain elevators are lined up as far as one can see! I have always lived where there is an abundance of agriculture and food production. Gardening? For some people, it must seem trivial. Growing much of your own food? Good for you, Imafan26!
Steve
as a kid, I thought that my destiny was to be a farmer. it was not to be. my family was a part of what the demographers call "rural flight." my response has been to be a gardener.
Hawaii has an initiative to try to grow more food locally. It is hard because most small farmers can't afford to buy a lot of land so most of the small farmers are on 1-5 acre plots. Some are leased, some are owned. The larger tracts of land from the dissolution of the plantations, either ended up as housing or were bought by Pioneer, and Monsanto for seed corn farms.
Hawaii is a service industry economy dependent on tourism. The few crops we do grow have a hard time competing in the world market. There are macadamia nuts, coffee, Cacao. Dole still has fresh pineapple but the market is small. Papaya, and flower farming are the other commodities. Papaya needs to be heat treated so it needs to be picked half ripe. It does not taste as good as a papaya that is in Hawaii that is eaten ripe. Lychee and mangoes here are mainly for the local market. There are shrimp and some fish farms (tilapia and catfish) that are usually also marketed locally. We don't grow rice, potatoes, or wheat. We do grow the seed corn and locally farmers will grow tropical corn for the local market. There is some local produce in the market, chayote, squash, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, beans, bitter melon, some seasonal melons, Asian greens, but none has a large market share. Even eggs, milk, and bread are imported. There are a few small egg farms but their costs cannot compete with mainland eggs. The two largest dairies closed down years ago. And the last big bakery closed last year, so only some of their products could be made by other smaller bakeries, but none of the smaller bakeries can produce much of the everyday bread, so that is frozen and shipped in from the mainland.
When my nephew lived on Molokai, he came once a month to Oahu to shop at Costco. I know the bulk non perishable items could be shipped by the inter island barge. I am not sure how they got all of the other fresh items like meat and produce over. I know they took it most of it on the plane with them. There is only one airline that serves Molokai. They only have 7 passenger planes with a 50 lb. limit If they took no baggage with them, the two of them could take 100 lbs of fresh food back. No big planes can land on Molokai, the airport there is strictly for small planes and the only other way would be by boat to Maui and then a flight to Honolulu. On Molokai they can supplement with fish and deer. My sister would send them care packages. When they returned to Honolulu, they rented their house out and I remember they sent over a spare refrigerator by barge because the refrigerator on Molokai had quit. They have moved back and are living with my mom now.
There is a go farm program to help new farmers start up. But the business climate here has never been good. Taxes are regressive and regulations make it hard for small farmers to compete. It's expensive to ship it off island. Most of the farms have moved to the outside islands now that they have direct flights because land is cheaper there. The cost of everything else that needs to be shipped inter island costs more. And we still had the issues everyone else had with climate change, drought and rising costs of production. Even the egg farm had times when they did not have egg cartons or bags for the manure.
And then there are the pests and diseases that the farms have to deal with year round. New pests and diseases cause a lot of crop damage, because of the lack of predators and costly treatment.
Hawaii even imports taro for poi, because of the problems of diseases and pests in the local farms and they can't produce enough taro.
There are a couple of larger farms that sell to local stores. And some of the small farmers sell directly to smaller stores and restaurants. They are often limited by requirements to have a processing facility in order to sell in some markets. For small farms that kind of facility takes a lot of space and costs too much for the farm build and operate so it limits their market. A facility was built in Wahiawa by Ho farms that can process the produce and meet the requirements and they are renting the facilities to smaller farmers to use.
Isolated in the middle of the Pacific has its limits. It's not like there are alternate suppliers and other barges coming from other places. Even inter island shipping is dominated by a single company. Some businesses consider the market too small and red tape so bad they won't ship here anyway. So, we are especially vulnerable when our only lifeline has a problem. During the pandemic we still got regular shipments from the mainland, because the barges that carry our cargo is not a super tanker and could dock at a smaller berth. It just depended on whether the shippers could get their cargo to the port. Hawaii has just in time shipping, so we have about a 9 day supply of fresh food. We can't stock up on more because there is no where to store it and since it takes a few days to get here the shelf life isn't going to be that good on some things. During the pandemic, the inter island shipper cut the number of trips to the outer islands from twice a week to once a week to cut costs because of the rising fuel costs. There wasn't enough cargo to make it cost effective to make two shipments a week. The local stores on the other islands had to scramble to find places to store bulk commodities and refrigerated foods and their fresh food isn't so fresh when they have to keep it twice as long. Most of them ended up having to keep shipping containers on site for storage since they did not have enough storage space.
Hawaii is a service industry economy dependent on tourism. The few crops we do grow have a hard time competing in the world market. There are macadamia nuts, coffee, Cacao. Dole still has fresh pineapple but the market is small. Papaya, and flower farming are the other commodities. Papaya needs to be heat treated so it needs to be picked half ripe. It does not taste as good as a papaya that is in Hawaii that is eaten ripe. Lychee and mangoes here are mainly for the local market. There are shrimp and some fish farms (tilapia and catfish) that are usually also marketed locally. We don't grow rice, potatoes, or wheat. We do grow the seed corn and locally farmers will grow tropical corn for the local market. There is some local produce in the market, chayote, squash, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, beans, bitter melon, some seasonal melons, Asian greens, but none has a large market share. Even eggs, milk, and bread are imported. There are a few small egg farms but their costs cannot compete with mainland eggs. The two largest dairies closed down years ago. And the last big bakery closed last year, so only some of their products could be made by other smaller bakeries, but none of the smaller bakeries can produce much of the everyday bread, so that is frozen and shipped in from the mainland.
When my nephew lived on Molokai, he came once a month to Oahu to shop at Costco. I know the bulk non perishable items could be shipped by the inter island barge. I am not sure how they got all of the other fresh items like meat and produce over. I know they took it most of it on the plane with them. There is only one airline that serves Molokai. They only have 7 passenger planes with a 50 lb. limit If they took no baggage with them, the two of them could take 100 lbs of fresh food back. No big planes can land on Molokai, the airport there is strictly for small planes and the only other way would be by boat to Maui and then a flight to Honolulu. On Molokai they can supplement with fish and deer. My sister would send them care packages. When they returned to Honolulu, they rented their house out and I remember they sent over a spare refrigerator by barge because the refrigerator on Molokai had quit. They have moved back and are living with my mom now.
There is a go farm program to help new farmers start up. But the business climate here has never been good. Taxes are regressive and regulations make it hard for small farmers to compete. It's expensive to ship it off island. Most of the farms have moved to the outside islands now that they have direct flights because land is cheaper there. The cost of everything else that needs to be shipped inter island costs more. And we still had the issues everyone else had with climate change, drought and rising costs of production. Even the egg farm had times when they did not have egg cartons or bags for the manure.
And then there are the pests and diseases that the farms have to deal with year round. New pests and diseases cause a lot of crop damage, because of the lack of predators and costly treatment.
Hawaii even imports taro for poi, because of the problems of diseases and pests in the local farms and they can't produce enough taro.
There are a couple of larger farms that sell to local stores. And some of the small farmers sell directly to smaller stores and restaurants. They are often limited by requirements to have a processing facility in order to sell in some markets. For small farms that kind of facility takes a lot of space and costs too much for the farm build and operate so it limits their market. A facility was built in Wahiawa by Ho farms that can process the produce and meet the requirements and they are renting the facilities to smaller farmers to use.
Isolated in the middle of the Pacific has its limits. It's not like there are alternate suppliers and other barges coming from other places. Even inter island shipping is dominated by a single company. Some businesses consider the market too small and red tape so bad they won't ship here anyway. So, we are especially vulnerable when our only lifeline has a problem. During the pandemic we still got regular shipments from the mainland, because the barges that carry our cargo is not a super tanker and could dock at a smaller berth. It just depended on whether the shippers could get their cargo to the port. Hawaii has just in time shipping, so we have about a 9 day supply of fresh food. We can't stock up on more because there is no where to store it and since it takes a few days to get here the shelf life isn't going to be that good on some things. During the pandemic, the inter island shipper cut the number of trips to the outer islands from twice a week to once a week to cut costs because of the rising fuel costs. There wasn't enough cargo to make it cost effective to make two shipments a week. The local stores on the other islands had to scramble to find places to store bulk commodities and refrigerated foods and their fresh food isn't so fresh when they have to keep it twice as long. Most of them ended up having to keep shipping containers on site for storage since they did not have enough storage space.
Today, I went to Sam's Club. I have a premium membership so I can go in at 8 a.m. I got there about 8:17. The announcement of the dock problems was made on Friday. The stores were open on Saturday and people would have stocked up on Easter and Saturday is a busy day at all the markets. Sam's, Costco, and Walmart were all closed on Sunday for Easter.
There wasn't a rush of people but I did go in early as a premium member. There was a lot of open space. The bakery was half its' size, fresh produce was down by about a third of the floor space, and there were some meat and vegetable reefers that were empty. They still had rotisserie chickens. They stoked up on eggs for Easter. so they still had eggs, a good amount of salad greens. I would have bought some, but I got lettuce, carrots, and cole slaw from Walmart so I am good for the week. Can goods wise. Some pallets were filling in because the signs did not match the product but there were things there. I did not go into the freezer or refrigerated areas because I did not need to go there.
I spent $178.99 on 9 items. To be fair, my main reason to go to Sam's Club today was to get cat food. Online it showed that only 1 Sam's club of the three on the island had the type of cat food I use and they only had 27 cases left. They may be out of cat food for months and the price will be higher next time so I got 3 cases of 60 cans @ $42.48 a case for $127.44 before tax. I have 2 cats and they eat 2 cans a day, so one case lasts a month. The cans are smaller, so I have to supplement. I have some dry food, which is also in short supply, but I also supplement them with the inner breast meat of the rotisserie chicken. So, I spent $43.34 on my food and $8.21 on taxes. I did get a rotisserie chicken, cabbage, mushrooms, almond flour, 1 pack of English muffins (which I should not have on low carb),and ketchup. I wanted to get more carrots but they did not have any. I did get a pound of carrots at Walmart, so I do have some and I don't use them all the time so it should be o.k. It depends on what I use them for.
This is only Monday, the barge from California that left on Wednesday arrived yesterday. It was a holiday, so deliveries will be made today and tomorrow. I have not seen the store this empty, but the holiday does impact what is available today. Normally, the stores would be open on Sunday and the fresh produce would have been the first to be off loaded and delivered and that was delayed by the holiday even with out the worker shortage. The vessel that left on Saturday will arrive on Wednesday. We get two vessels a week from Oakland and Long Beach and once a week from Tacoma. The supplies are not all for Honolulu, some of that cargo goes inter island.
There wasn't a rush of people but I did go in early as a premium member. There was a lot of open space. The bakery was half its' size, fresh produce was down by about a third of the floor space, and there were some meat and vegetable reefers that were empty. They still had rotisserie chickens. They stoked up on eggs for Easter. so they still had eggs, a good amount of salad greens. I would have bought some, but I got lettuce, carrots, and cole slaw from Walmart so I am good for the week. Can goods wise. Some pallets were filling in because the signs did not match the product but there were things there. I did not go into the freezer or refrigerated areas because I did not need to go there.
I spent $178.99 on 9 items. To be fair, my main reason to go to Sam's Club today was to get cat food. Online it showed that only 1 Sam's club of the three on the island had the type of cat food I use and they only had 27 cases left. They may be out of cat food for months and the price will be higher next time so I got 3 cases of 60 cans @ $42.48 a case for $127.44 before tax. I have 2 cats and they eat 2 cans a day, so one case lasts a month. The cans are smaller, so I have to supplement. I have some dry food, which is also in short supply, but I also supplement them with the inner breast meat of the rotisserie chicken. So, I spent $43.34 on my food and $8.21 on taxes. I did get a rotisserie chicken, cabbage, mushrooms, almond flour, 1 pack of English muffins (which I should not have on low carb),and ketchup. I wanted to get more carrots but they did not have any. I did get a pound of carrots at Walmart, so I do have some and I don't use them all the time so it should be o.k. It depends on what I use them for.
This is only Monday, the barge from California that left on Wednesday arrived yesterday. It was a holiday, so deliveries will be made today and tomorrow. I have not seen the store this empty, but the holiday does impact what is available today. Normally, the stores would be open on Sunday and the fresh produce would have been the first to be off loaded and delivered and that was delayed by the holiday even with out the worker shortage. The vessel that left on Saturday will arrive on Wednesday. We get two vessels a week from Oakland and Long Beach and once a week from Tacoma. The supplies are not all for Honolulu, some of that cargo goes inter island.