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Unpopular opinion: maybe so many people don't need to suddenly become bakers who weren't baking before, and then we wouldn't have empty shelves all of the sudde

Unpopular opinion: maybe so many people don't need to suddenly become bakers who weren't baking before, and then we wouldn't have empty shelves all of the sudden.

ceejayoz 7y ago
Are you under the impression people are throwing the bread away after baking?
- khazhoux 7y ago
  No, I'm under the impression that people who did perfectly well buying loaves of bread before, and whose family@home bread consumption increases the amount of bread usage only by a moderate relative amount, are now buying loaves and months-worth of flour. The shortage of flour, butter, TP, chips, and everything else is due to individuals' selfishness. There is certainly enough food to account for the extra meals at home, its just now very unevenly distributed.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    This is simply false. The entire grocery supply chain works on a just-in-time model. Demand for stuff like flour, toilet paper, etc. on a chain-level scale is entirely predictable in normal times - Walmart can likely tell you what a given day's sales will be of stuff like toilet paper down to within a couple percent. A sudden, unexpected, and sustained 10-20% increase in purchases of various staples blows a gaping hole in the entire thing. The entire supply chain plans months ahead for Thanksgiving-level demand. We basically all did a Thanksgiving shop without warning.
ChristianBundy 7y ago
It's a shame that people are learning new things and experimenting with new hobbies to keep themselves busy during quarantine. All change is bad, but especially personal growth. But really though, a family buying 5 pounds of flour isn't the problem, it's the hoarders loading up shopping carts full of toilet paper and flour that give us empty shelves. I think we'd have enough for everyone if we didn't have greedy hoarders.
- jdashg 7y ago
  You don't really need hoarders to have a problem. If only twice as many households are cooking now than before, instead of stores having say 10% slack, they run out half way through the week. If you have four times as many people cooking, you run out your slack in two days. So the store increases their orders. But their suppliers only have X% slack. So they have to ramp up too. The whole supply/demand balance takes time to stabilize. The same number of people are eating the same calories as before, but the supply chains for those calories have shifted rapidly. Same for toilet paper: No one's pooping on company time anymore! Yes there are some hoarders, but we'd get temporary problems even with 0% hoarders.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Yep. It was basically a Thanksgiving-level event without the usual months of prep work preceding it.
    - mindslight 7y ago
      The situation has given me a new perspective on the ultimate purpose of all those sales around Thanksgiving. The stores know they're going to be selling a large amount of items some time before Thanksgiving. But they can't just order large quantities of items, only to store them until people decide to buy them. Rather, the sales let the supply chain control when people will be buying the bulk quantities, so the goods can arrive in stores as close to being sold as possible.
- khazhoux 7y ago
  I don't care about people trying a new hobby. That doesn't account for the lack of TP, flour, and now even chips and butter. Like you say: hoarders. Everyone is acting selfishly, and the stores aren't policing purchases enough.
  - nullc 7y ago
    Your claims are not supported by reports from industry experts: https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-c812e1358fe0 https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about... Our supply chains are optimized to have essentially no slack. When people switch from using the toilet at work to home, and when they buy a month at a time instead of a week at a time in order to comply with shelter in place orders, they drain the grocery stores extremely hard. No selfish or hoarding behavior is required to produce the effects you're talking about.

Unpopular opinion: maybe so many people don't need to suddenly become bakers who weren't baking before, and then we wouldn't have empty shelves all of the sudden.

ceejayoz 7y ago

Are you under the impression people are throwing the bread away after baking?

khazhoux 7y ago
No, I'm under the impression that people who did perfectly well buying loaves of bread before, and whose family@home bread consumption increases the amount of bread usage only by a moderate relative amount, are now buying loaves and months-worth of flour. The shortage of flour, butter, TP, chips, and everything else is due to individuals' selfishness. There is certainly enough food to account for the extra meals at home, its just now very unevenly distributed.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  This is simply false. The entire grocery supply chain works on a just-in-time model. Demand for stuff like flour, toilet paper, etc. on a chain-level scale is entirely predictable in normal times - Walmart can likely tell you what a given day's sales will be of stuff like toilet paper down to within a couple percent. A sudden, unexpected, and sustained 10-20% increase in purchases of various staples blows a gaping hole in the entire thing. The entire supply chain plans months ahead for Thanksgiving-level demand. We basically all did a Thanksgiving shop without warning.

ChristianBundy 7y ago

It's a shame that people are learning new things and experimenting with new hobbies to keep themselves busy during quarantine. All change is bad, but especially personal growth. But really though, a family buying 5 pounds of flour isn't the problem, it's the hoarders loading up shopping carts full of toilet paper and flour that give us empty shelves. I think we'd have enough for everyone if we didn't have greedy hoarders.

jdashg 7y ago
You don't really need hoarders to have a problem. If only twice as many households are cooking now than before, instead of stores having say 10% slack, they run out half way through the week. If you have four times as many people cooking, you run out your slack in two days. So the store increases their orders. But their suppliers only have X% slack. So they have to ramp up too. The whole supply/demand balance takes time to stabilize. The same number of people are eating the same calories as before, but the supply chains for those calories have shifted rapidly. Same for toilet paper: No one's pooping on company time anymore! Yes there are some hoarders, but we'd get temporary problems even with 0% hoarders.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Yep. It was basically a Thanksgiving-level event without the usual months of prep work preceding it.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    The situation has given me a new perspective on the ultimate purpose of all those sales around Thanksgiving. The stores know they're going to be selling a large amount of items some time before Thanksgiving. But they can't just order large quantities of items, only to store them until people decide to buy them. Rather, the sales let the supply chain control when people will be buying the bulk quantities, so the goods can arrive in stores as close to being sold as possible.
khazhoux 7y ago
I don't care about people trying a new hobby. That doesn't account for the lack of TP, flour, and now even chips and butter. Like you say: hoarders. Everyone is acting selfishly, and the stores aren't policing purchases enough.
- nullc 7y ago
  Your claims are not supported by reports from industry experts: https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-c812e1358fe0 https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about... Our supply chains are optimized to have essentially no slack. When people switch from using the toilet at work to home, and when they buy a month at a time instead of a week at a time in order to comply with shelter in place orders, they drain the grocery stores extremely hard. No selfish or hoarding behavior is required to produce the effects you're talking about.