It's About the Food Supply Chain!

Dear Joanie,

    How many parents have pictures of their toddlers in the high chair with food smeared all over their faces? The toddler on the left is your mother; the one on the right, of course, is you. There are much messier pictures of you in your high chair, but they are videos. I'll try to go back and make a still shot of one of the videos. It would be great to feature you in all your messiness!

    Cameras were not so handy when Coco and your Great Aunt Julie were toddlers, and we had to go to specialized stores to get the film from our camera developed.  (If this last sentence doesn't make sense to you, use the research terms: camera; film; darkroom; development.) If we HAD had handy cameras at the time, let's say about 1961, I would be posting a picture of your Great Aunt Julie in her high chair in the kitchen of our house in Holyoke, Massachusetts. She was eating oatmeal for breakfast, and I was about to spoon more into her mouth, when she picked up the full bowl, all sloppy with milk and oatmeal, and turned it upside down over her head. The picture I would have captured would have shown Julie with oatmeal streaming down her face, in her eyes, in her ears, streaming down, down, onto her cheeks and her nose and her mouth. I was speechless, but your Grandmother Coco wasn't. She put her little arms on her hips, and looked up at Julie, and uttered a phrase I can't repeat here, but one I recognized from hearing the babysitter. I chastised Coco, put Julie in a sink full of warm water and washed her off, and fired the babysitter.

 

 

Actually, when both of these pictures were taken, about 30 years apart,  we all had an understanding of the supply chain, but didn't actually give it much thought. But right now, mid-October 2021, it's in the headlines. And Dougie and I can feel it; actually, even Shelby Poodle is feeling the consequences of a bottleneck in our supply chain, in how the products we want, especially food, get from the point of origin to the nearby store where I can buy them and take them home.

     Here's an example or two. At Whole Foods, our grocery store, we buy a bread called Seeduction (nice name!).  We toast it and pair it with freshly ground peanut butter for our morning toast. It comes close to a ritual for both Dougie and me.  Well. Whole Food has now been out of Seeduction for about a month. At first, when they didn't have it, I didn't think much about it. I'll just come back again. It's probably their most popular bread. The second time I went in and they still didn't have it, it was annoying, but then I took a second look and realized that the bread section didn't have much bread at all. All their baking trays were empty, and the delectable display of loaves and loaves of all kinds and shapes had shrunk considerably. The third time I went in to find no Seeduction, I asked, "What's going on?  The woman behind the counter just shrugged. Then, yesterday, that same woman suggested to Dougie that we might want to try another kind of bread, but their stock was still low.     

    But that's not all that happened at Whole Foods yesterday.  What could be worse than their being out of Seeduction bread. You may have guessed it. They were out of freshly ground peanut butter!  We were incredulous! 

    Of course, there are plenty of commercial breads and peanut butters on the shelves. We are not going to starve, We're no where near that. But it's eerie. Four shelves in Target that usually carry the shampoo and conditioner I like have been empty for about a month now.  When I tried Great Harvest Bread Company, their shelves were equally empty, and I bought their last loaf of whole grain bread. 

    At the Carillon, where Doug and I live, the menu in the restaurant has to be adjusted frequently because they have not received a complete food order.  The manager changed suppliers, but the problem has continued. 

    Here's what I understand from reading national news.  There is not a shortage of food, except perhaps sugar (due to hurricane crop damage). The problem is transport. Freight containers delivered to seaports remain there. Thousands have not been picked up. There is a shortage of truck drivers. The supply chain is in gridlock. 

    This just in today from The Post-Journal of Jamestown, NY:

    On his website, Food Guru Lempert writes that the CEO of Rouse’s Markets in Louisiana said that his chain of 60 supermarkets is receiving as little as 40% of what they order. Costco has again implemented one package per person limits on the sale of toilet paper, paper towels and other products as of late August. Food service giant Sysco has called their restaurant customers in various locations throughout the nation to tell them they have to delay or pause service due to labor shortages – and without food, these restaurants are once again having to close their doors.

Our world has changed so much, Joanie, and we are mostly living with our heads in the sand, trying really, really, hard to feel normalcy when we're still wearing masks indoors, getting booster shots for COVID, avoiding large crowds, and doing without peanut butter toast. 

     You, of course, besides being a messy eater, are walking all over the place, spending your days at the park and the aquarium and the zoo. We love the pictures and the videos. They give us great hope. 

Love,

 GG Katie