Are You seeing Food shortages & higher prices where you are?

[Gary350]

Wife had a 9:15 am doctor apt then we drive to the grocery store pharmacy to get her meds. There are only 3 dozen eggs on the shelf & we got 1. We had no problem buying bleach. Still no chocolate covers yeast donuts for 4 weeks. Wife had a small list but store was out of those other items. Several shelves have empty places. Last week there was no BBQ sauce.. Today there is no coffee creamer. A month ago there was no milk for a week & not much bread. Wife said, eggs were 92 cents when I bought them last & today eggs are $1.88 and last time I bought bleach it was $2.50 & today it is $5 per gallon. Gas was 2.87 when I filled up a week ago & today gas is $3.03. Wife said, lets go to Hardies and get breakfast before they stop serving breakfast. Hardies breakfast is still $4 each but a 11 oz bottle of orange juice is now $3.80. Wife said, lets go home I don't want to go to another store looking for things we can do without for a few more days.

[PaulF]

No shortages in our area, but prices are skyrocketing on everything.

[webmaster]

There is definitely a shortage of cat food. I went to four different stores two weeks ago and the shelves were bare of the brand I usually buy. Found it at the fifth store I checked in the twelve packs, so I bought four of them.

Food that comes in containers are definitely stocked irregularly. It's not like I can go to the store anymore and count on a jar of pesto or a box of cereal to be in stock. Sometimes it's not.

Last Thursday I went to the store for ground beef and they were completely out at Whole Foods.

[imafan26]

There are shortages and prices are rising on just about everything.
Gas went up about 30 cents from the last time I put gas in about 10 days ago. I was $3.87 for regular. It is still less than it was at its peak at over $4 a gallon a few days ago. Rising gas prices, translates for us to rising fuel charges on my electric bill. It was $130 this month and I used about the same amount of electricity that cost $20 less a few months ago. Utility based rates also increased for water and electricity in July. Those are almost $100 for water ( sewer chargers $77 per meter, billing charge $9, and charges for volume that is based on the total water used, sewage is not measured, and I am being cheated on that every month. for 5K gallons I get 1 K for irrigation. When I use 2K gallons I get nothing even though I still water the yard.) There are spot empty shelves at the store mainly for canned goods related to the can shortage. I managed to get canning jars in April, but lids were hard to come by. I did find a few lids by looking often. Mason jars are again sparse and hard to find. Finally got some canned corn. They were only available at Costco in gallon cans. It was $1.72 a 15 ounce can at Walmart. Usually it is 74 cents for the store brand. Creamed corn was available at 74 cents.

Sam's club finally got gravy and shreds cat food in. I bought 3 boxes it cost $32 for 60 cans. The cans are smaller. Three cases will last for 3 months. Walmart cat food has a couple of boxes on the shelf mostly pate. Last month Sam's club only had Fancy feast pate. My cat will vomit if he has to eat pate. I did resort to buying cat food on Amazon three months ago, because there wasn't any canned cat food. My cat's have been complaining about not getting enough to eat so I am buying chicken livers,gizzards, and hearts, and tilapia fist to supplement them. If I buy a Costco rotisserie chicken which is still the same price, The cat's get part of that too. I tried giving them scrambled eggs. They would not touch it. Dry cat food and cat litter has been available. I have some dry food as back up. It is not good for the cats to get that as a regular meal. It does not have enough water to meet their needs and too much carbs.

Almost everything at home depot has gone up at least 5% and we never did match the online price because the store has to pay extra for everything shipped to Hawaii. Guam has to pay even more unless it is coming from Asia. A couple wanted to buy a gazebo. They found one that the vendor was willing to ship to Hawaii. Yeah, that is an issue too. Some vendors won't ship to Hawaii and nothing that has explosive flammables like fuel and batteries will be able to ship to customers or even to stores without special handling. This is not a new problem. Anyway, the online price was $1499. After shipping to Hawaii the price was $1599. The couple asked to have it shipped to the store but did have the option to ship to their home.

There isn't any real panic buying, but Costco has limited paper products, and some people have been stocking up. We have some stock but not of all brands and some of the paper goods shelves are hard to keep filled. The store ordered holiday stuff early. The store ordered half as much decorations for Halloween and most of those are already sold out except for a few odds and ends. People are still looking for pumpkins. Christmas decorations went up 2 weeks earlier and some only had limited quantities and they are already sold out. The Christmas gift center is being set up now.

Some of the seasonal fruits like apples are coming in, but avocados are now more expensive. They were $5.99 at Costco before and now they are $7.99. What a rip off especially for Haas avocados from California, the local avocados are bigger and better. But, most of those are also out of season now. Bananas are about 20 cents higher. Tomatoes are almost a dollar higher than last year. Good thing I don't buy a lot of tomatoes. I checked the price of hot peppers (Thai peppers are still about $20 a lb). Staples like onions and potatoes are also up as well as rice. Up about a dollar for 15# bag. 50 and 100 lb bags are not as easy to find and those prices are up as well. It is easy to spend $100 at a grocery store or more than that at Walmart.

My Costco and Sam's Club bills are actually not too bad, mainly because, I stocked up on a lot of things earlier so I really don't have a lot to buy every month except bacon, eggs, and cat food. I haven't bought clothes for a while, but there aren't any bargains there either. Which is why I am not buying anything now. Costco still has a good deal on rotisserie chickens and hot dogs. Although the bun is smaller and I cannot get polish dogs anymore. The prices of those have not changed at all.

I can get a $5 medium frozen pizza at Walmart that will last a couple of days or more. I can add my own toppings to it. The 1 lb hamburger and turkey chubs are still cheaper than anyplace else. The price has gone up about a dollar, but it is still less than what it costs anywhere else.

Costco and Sam's club meats are in packages that are too big and pricey for me. It would be a waste. I can get not as good a quality, but certainly a more affordable price and smaller quantity that is less wasteful in local markets. I would have to have a lot of freezer space to make a trip to Chinatown worthwhile.

McDonald's only dollar item left is probably the soda. However, I can get 2 liters of Sam's brand soda for 88 cents. Less convenient, but cheaper, if I can wait until I get home. I know I should not have soda, but I need my caffeine fix, and I do like my caffeine cold. Vanilla cones are on special now for 89 cents too. I shouldn't have ice cream or imitation ice cream either. I have no room for it in the freezer. At least when I buy it at Mickey D's, it is not a gallon of it at a time.

Seeds have gone up in the catalogs, and seed counts are down from 20 to 10 or15 seeds in some packets. The seed companies still have some items that are backlogged and I have had to hunt around and try other sources to get some of the seeds I wanted. I still can't find some seeds, but I have enough to plant now. Those seeds will just have to stay on my wish list for now.

Vegetable prices have gone up, but I hardly buy anything except for the staples onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes. Some things are seasonally available like snow peas, water cress, gobo, and lotus root.
Fresh fruit has always been expensive but litchi did not produce well this year so it was even more expensive than usual. One or two bags of garlic at Costco will last all year, and I grow my own ginger, a few of the common herbs and bay leaves. Maybe I will buy a tomato once in a while and 2-3 bananas. Those have gone up in price. I had to hunt for carrots a couple of weeks ago. All I could find was the whittled down snack carrots. Bananas went from 89 cents to $1.29 a lb. I bought some frozen mixed vegetables. There were more peas in it than anything else. I thought I opened the wrong bag.
Frozen vegetables are more expensive and the bags are smaller. I know the price of produce has gone up, but I rarely buy fresh produce because I eat what I have in my garden or I get frozen instead since it doesn't spoil as fast. I don't buy a lot of canned vegetables because of the color, texture and the added salt. Soda is about the same price but the cans are smaller, if you can find canned soda (can shortage again).

Canned spam is locked up at the grocery stores because of theft. It is like gold now at $5 a can. A lot of things are being locked up now. Abalone has been locked up for years. In the Pacific, from Hawaii, to Guam, and in parts of the P.I., spam is a staple meat that can feed a lot of people. Everything from Spam musubi, to fried rice, spam loaf, omelettes, spam stir fry, and somen salad, etc. It is a versatile meat. You can use it in place of salt. Corned beef is a close second, if you can find any on the shelf. I did buy some canned sardines and tuna. Those prices are also up. I bought it as backup or supplements for cat food. Which reminds me I need to go and buy the cats more tilapia or pompano. I don't cook the fish, I go to the Asian market and buy the fish already cooked. My cats are spoiled, but they are not fat. I don't spoil them everyday.

Dry milk, OMG! It is $20 for 4- one quart packets in a box. Fresh milk by the gallon is about $5.50-$8 depending on the brand and where you go. Most of our "fresh" milk is mainland milk that was frozen. Most of the local dairies went out of business years ago. Now that the largest bakery has closed because of the pandemic only a fraction of the bread is produced locally. Most of the bread is coming in frozen from the mainland. We do have locally produced, beef, pork, and chicken. However, the slaughter houses closed years ago. Most of the slaughtering is done in small quantities on the farm.
That means they do have to meet BOH requirements and state laws but they cannot carry the USDA seal.

[TomatoNut95]

Things are high here to. Perhaps because they're having too much trouble bringing stuff in. Bonnie plants don't come from other countries though and they've got outrageous. I used to think 3.58 for one plant was bad but now it's around 4.50.

As far as food is concerned I need to try and expand my garden. Keep more seeds in stock and in the freezer to ensure a longer viability.

[Vanisle_BC]

Some of the high prices could be simply due to current scarcity and the 'law' of supply & demand; which isn't really a law - mostly just a symptom of human greed.

Not a law but I guess it's natural in a way - you could even call it organic

[imafan26]

Record demand is fueling prices for sure. Even local items are affected. The price of locally sourced food also went up. Part of that was the increased costs for water (price hikes by the board of water supply), gas, plus farmers still had to import things like seeds, feed, farm equipment and shipping prices have quadrupled, if you can get it.

The pandemic closed a lot of businesses who let their staff go and some leases go because they could not afford to keep them. Covid has been hard on the service industry, they cannot count on a regular paycheck and with inflation, they have an even harder time making ends meet. Many of them probably did choose not to look for work while unemployment benefits were generous. Many people had to move in with relatives or relocate to other states to find employment. Employers in restaurants still cannot find staff and are even offering higher wages and health benefits they never had before. Jobs still go wanting because restaurants are also being hog tied by covid restrictions that limit capacity and can be shut down without warning if the numbers go up. People cannot make a living if they cannot get steady work. Workers who depend on tips, need to have more turnover and that does not happen on 50% capacity. Restaurants and even McDonalds have had to alter their menus because they are paying more for food costs, sometimes they can't even get what they need. Many restaurants chose to stay with takeout only so they did not need all of their wait staff, and they don't need to spend extra money on making sure only vaccinated people are dining in and not having to deal with customers who just want to be difficult. Restaurants that are open for dining, still have limited seating and still struggle to get enough workers. Managers often have to protect their staff from abusive customers. If they don't, the employees may just decide the job is not worth it.

Farms could continue to work, but many farms could not sell their specialty produce to the hotels and restaurants. It is not easy for farmers to switch crops and find new markets. The city did help farmers by providing them with a venue on city property, for a farm to car market. The farmer's markets were initially closed and are open again, but they still have capacity limits. Some markets had to close again during the delta surge, but now are open again. Farmers had to take the loss during that month if they did not have anywhere else to sell their products.

Every time the price of fuel goes up, prices go up. That is a reality. Everything you get has been on a truck, boat, or plane, to get from point A to point B.

Schools have reopened but the largest bakery closed because they were dependent on regular orders from customers like schools. Some bread is being produced by local bakeries, but now we are dependent on shipping in frozen bread from the mainland.

Child care is still a problem for many people. They had to go back to work, but child care is hard to find. If schools or classes are closed because of covid outbreaks, parents don't have a lot of choices.

There are definitely more people going back to work. Traffic is back, and so are the long lines at the gas station. Gas prices have gone up since more people are commuting in their cars and spending less time at home.

All of these things point to how dependent we are on a smooth operating system. The faults in the system were there, but Covid brought them to the fore. Businesses dependent on a single supplier to source their goods (computer chips) and companies that depend largely on a single segment of the economy (restaurants, tourist industry) for most of their livelihood. And everyone dependent on the smooth operation of a supply chain that is overwhelmed and broken.

Even though Florida and Texas said they could handle more ships. It would still not solve the problem. Once the cargo is off loaded, the shippers still have to deal with the logistics of getting containers, trucks, chassis, drivers, and a warehouse or destination to take the cargo away.

[Vanisle_BC]

imafan you're right - much of the rise in prices is justified by effects of the pandemic - though, I suspect, not all.

[imafan26]

What I can't get is why a hundred ships are anchored off the ports waiting. If ships have schedules and docking appointments, why do ships still come just to sit and wait for weeks.

I heard that California is making is harder for independent truckers to work in California because their trucks have to pass California environmental standards. That would make fewer trucks eligible to even enter the docks.

[Gary350]

What I can't get is why a hundred ships are anchored off the ports waiting. If ships have schedules and docking appointments, why do ships still come just to sit and wait for weeks.

I heard that California is making is harder for independent truckers to work in California because their trucks have to pass California environmental standards. That would make fewer trucks eligible to even enter the docks.

TV said, about 50% of the loading dock workers are out sick with covid and several have not returned to work, experienced works are not easy to replace. 80,000. trucks set in parking lots not being used drivers were sick with covid, old drivers have retired, now drivers are on strike for higher pay. TV showed UAW truck drivers are getting $28 per hour and on strike for $31.25 per hour.

Today TV said, schools have food shortage, bring your own lunch we have a limited amount of food. 50 years ago we ate plate lunches but now students eat pizza & hamburgers.

Wife buys soap & cleaning supplies online from Amazon & Walmart it costs about 20% to 25% less than buying it at the store. Orders usually arrive at our door in 2 days but last time her order never arrived & after 1 month she was given a full refund. A month after the refund her order arrived at our door, FREE.

TV keeps reporting grocery store food shortages with lots of photos of empty shelves. This makes people panic and hoard food and other items. We were surprised yesterday not many people panic buying.

Yesterday we made our weekly shopping trip to 3 stores. Super Kroger is first the store had only a few shortages. Wife has better memory than me she remembers prices at every store, we buy lowest price items at each store. Walmart had about 1/4 of their shelves empty but we bought everything we wanted. Aldi's had no shortage either and we learned eggs are $1.30 per dozen, cheese is $1 less per package. Aldi's always has the best prices but not a lot of variety. We get Tikka Masala sauce for $2 at Aldi's it is $4 at Walmart. We have 7 Walmart's in town each Walmart caters to the customers that shop at their store so each store has items other stores don't have.

[pepperhead212]

I always find the prices best at Aldi's, too, and I was just in there this morning. Some of the prices are the same as they were a year ago, while I have noticed some going up. Milk and eggs were below other places I have seen them, and cheeses were some of those that haven't changed in a long time. Oils are one thing I have noticed the prices going up on, though I haven't bought any for a while. Junk food has definitely gone up, though the only thing that I buy on that aisle is tortilla chips, when I make guacamole, which I make a lot less in the off season.

When I was in that Indian market a while back, I noticed that the prices of the legumes and spices are pretty much the same as a couple of years ago. And almost all of those things are imported, for sure! They also have a generous amount of junk food, and the price of some of that has gone up considerably! Are more people at home now eating more of that stuff, and the companies are taking advantage of this? Some of those aren't even transported as far, because they are made in this country.

As when this pandemic started, I have enough food in my house to keep me for a couple of years, not including what might come from the garden. So if certain items skyrocket in price, I just stop buying them! There's nothing I need that badly, except maybe hot peppers, which I never run out of.

[TomatoNut95]

I already took care of my Christmas shopping so I got what I needed to get before everyone grabbed up everything and it'll take forever to restock. Thankfully I haven't any children to buy toys for but my mom is picky. She wanted pretty much the same thing I got her last year: a box of sodium free food. Got her mustard, no salt added garbanzo beans, no salt taco seasoning and the soundtracks to the Star Wars trilogy. I also went ahead and took care of half her birthday present which is next February.

If my replacement CD is going to take over a month to come then that may mean it'll take Amazon that long to restock other items. I think it's wise to Christmas shop early.

[imafan26]

The latest news is that there are enough dock workers in California, they do not have capacity because the port is packed with containers that have not been picked up and nearby warehouse space is at a premium. Warehouses farther away may have space, but are not getting containers because of the lack of trucks to pick up cargo or because freight handlers are not using their warehouse.

The only stores we have from the mainland chains are Target, Walmart, and Safeway. Safeway is expensive for most things. Target and Walmart are pretty good for packaged mainland food. We don't have Aldi, Dollar stores (not anymore), or Kroeger. The other main food chains were started by local families, but have been sold to mostly Japanese buyers. Pacific market carries Asian goods from many countries Philippines, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, China, and India. The owners are Chinese. We do have a Filipino owned supermarket and a few locally owned markets. Don Qiyote and Marukai are Japanese owned chains. Farmers markets are also dominated by the larger farms. Aloun farms are owned by a Cambodian family. There are some other farms that are owned by local families. Farmland on Oahu is scarce and expensive and is usually leased not owned. Small farms tend to specialize in a few crops like papaya, watercress, mac nut, coffee, and a few vegetables like tomatoes and Asian greens. At the farmers markets, especially the smaller ones, all the vendors pretty much sell the same things. Some of the farmers don't grow all of their produce. Instead they buy from truck farms and resell. It isn't always cheaper to buy from a farmers market. It can be more expensive than the super market so you do need to know your prices. The quality at farmers markets is better even seconds.

If I have a choice, I prefer to get local meat and produce. Mainland eggs smell more, and mainland meat is usually brought in frozen. Mainland vegetables are usually picked greener so they don't taste as good as they should and the vegetables, especially the cucumbers and leafy greens wilt fast so they don't have a long shelf life. All of the cold weather fresh fruits like apples, plums, peaches, nectarine, apricots, and oranges come from the mainland. We do have Kau oranges ( from Big Island), but it is seasonal as well. You are lucky your food does not have to travel as far.

[TomatoNut95]

The closer it gets to Thanksgiving more food is being grabbed up. I want to make broccoli and rice casserole but I can't get the jar of Cheese Whiz, Wal-Mart shows out of stock, Amazon showed out of stock. I also heard there's a sweet potato crisis. I probably will be extremely lucky if I can find a turkey or a ham. Guess I could eat a frozen dinner for Thanksgiving. Or, I saw a doe in the pasture yesterday. I wonder what my family would think of roast deer?