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Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

swiss.social

101–110 of 385 posts

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#101
post #53

In case you haven't contemplated this logistics challenge before: the key is you need to stock shelf-stable products in these stores and at some point in their shelf life, transfer them out to other stores for actual consumption and back fill the emergency stores with fresh lots of new shelf stable products. You're just buying more shelf-stable supply once and then managing the transit through the supply chain with s…

> stock shelf-stable products in these stores and at some point in their shelf life, transfer them out to other stores for actual consumption Back in my days in retail, we were ordered to put resupply as FILO into the shelfs. It makes sense to sell the oldest products first. So why the transfer shuffle?

It's still FILO, the shuffle is needed for multiple locations. The emergency store keeps (for example) 5x the stock of canned beans, and feeds an area with 4 regular stores. They have 5x more stock then they could regularly sell, so if stock wasn't transferred then the canned beans would expire before they were sold. They need to transfer their surplus inventory to the 4 regular stores they feed before that stock ages, since in regular use they won't sell them in time.

Since I've had to deal with a similar issue professionally, maybe think of a retailer with 5 distribution warehouses and 50 stores. Normally you want to pick from the closest distribution warehouse to minimize transport costs. However, for food items that expire sometimes it might make sense to pick from the furthest warehouse if their stock is getting older, you need to optimize both for transport costs and the cost of having to throw food away. It's beyond a HN comment, and I'd have to review what isn't NDA, but the optimization math for such a scenario gets both really complicated and really interesting.

Hope this clarifies why they would be moving stick though.

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#102

Wait, so we're now approaching risk levels high enough that's its economically feasible for businesses to prepare for situations where their stores lose power, telecom, and resupply? Are we already preparing for land war across western Europe?

we may or may not but I don't think this is reflective of it. This is just the fragility of digital societies were one hack or outage can kill entire national payment systems. A few decades ago any store could run three days without power or telecoms. Here in Germany foreigners often scoff about how prevalent cash is, but to this day nobody has yet invented a payment technology that works without electricity, without…

The US experiences these situations regularly due to its somewhat unique exposure to a dizzying array of severe natural disasters.

Having survived an above average number of these in my life myself where basic services were down for many days, I have a pretty good idea of what happens. Having cash versus digital doesn’t matter. No one is keeping track, people just take care of people. Everyone writes it off, moves on, and the community becomes stronger.

This is pretty wired into the culture. No one will accept your money in these scenarios even if you have it.

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#103
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should give that some thought but look at Texas. In 2021 they were devastated by a snowstorm. This year they were devastated by flooding. Not to pick on Texas, they aren't the only ones caught under prepared for severe weather. Wildfires and drought in the western states is another thing we're under prepared for. And look at the hoarding of toilet paper etc. in 2020. I presume there's been problems in Europe…

Just this last week, all the major cargo train lines in northern Sweden suffered big derailments simultaneously, and several dozen roads were made unusable. This was all from a single incident of unusually heavy rain. The country will have badly damaged logistics on the North-South axis for weeks to come, maybe months. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasternorrland/stora-probl... Preparedness is vital!

Does anyone have an English language post for this story? That sounds like quite a yikes!

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#104
post #20
post #17

>The idea is that no one should be more than 50 km from such a store and it should prevent hoarding/panic buying as people will know basic food will be available in an emergency. I dont think that is how it works? That is assuming people wont flock out to buy everything in the emergency store. And do people visit it every day or are these "Emergency Stores". After all they need to replenish stock. Or are these simply…

> That is assuming people wont flock out to buy everything in the emergency store. Well, you could make everything really expensive in these emergency stores during an emergency.

Screwing the poor in deference to the rich doesn’t seem like good policy

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#105

Wait, so we're now approaching risk levels high enough that's its economically feasible for businesses to prepare for situations where their stores lose power, telecom, and resupply? Are we already preparing for land war across western Europe?

3 days isn't very long, it's reasonable to look at this as a generic resiliency thing rather than response to some identifiable risk.

In the USA I try to have what we need for one week with food and without power or potable tap water. This just seems like common sense. After the SF earthquake in 89 you weren't supposed to drink the tap water for a couple days. Lots of things have taken out power and COVID made shopping difficult. Resilience is good.

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#106
post #83

It's a very good idea. I wish we had good ideas in the United States.

It's a private grocer, it's not like the government is doing it. So anyone could set this up. It also doesn't even sound like that great of an idea. Is each store going to have enough to serve everyone in the 50km region for 3 days?

The better question is will it seriously increase the number of people’s access to goods during an emergency. Or is it just an extra stop for the panic buyers buying up everything in bulk on the way back home on the first day or two before the rest of the people start taking it seriously.

IRL market demands are massive for a western country so it’d require a lot more than a single chain of grocers staying open late. Or more accurately a huge devastating emergency to kill off essential industry like food production/distribution.

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#107

Wait, so we're now approaching risk levels high enough that's its economically feasible for businesses to prepare for situations where their stores lose power, telecom, and resupply? Are we already preparing for land war across western Europe?

3 days isn't very long, it's reasonable to look at this as a generic resiliency thing rather than response to some identifiable risk.

3 days is a pretty long time unless the damage is catastrophic and very broad based. Extended preparations come with an overhead cost that must be offset by the benefit.

Denmark specifically is not a populous country. You could probably keep the entire country fed with just the capacity of e.g. the US military airlift capability, which has been used in these situations. The emergency reserves mostly only need to exist until supply chains are established. It is a balancing act.

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#108
post #53

In case you haven't contemplated this logistics challenge before: the key is you need to stock shelf-stable products in these stores and at some point in their shelf life, transfer them out to other stores for actual consumption and back fill the emergency stores with fresh lots of new shelf stable products. You're just buying more shelf-stable supply once and then managing the transit through the supply chain with s…

> stock shelf-stable products in these stores and at some point in their shelf life, transfer them out to other stores for actual consumption Back in my days in retail, we were ordered to put resupply as FILO into the shelfs. It makes sense to sell the oldest products first. So why the transfer shuffle?

[deleted]

Re: Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

#110
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sure am! And as a strategical prepper, I've left the entire continent behind well before shit hits the fan. Hopefully I'll have my new life sufficiently set up to help those I love and left behind, and even more hopefully they'll be able to get out, once the shit actually hits. I'd like for them to come to me earlier, but I don't think I'll get more than visits until bombs start falling. If I'm lucky some of them w…

Asia, Australia or south America?

Technically North America! But people don't tend to think of Mexico that way.

It's not trouble free, not by a long shot. I have family connection to here though and I recon Mexico is not very likely to partake in WW3 in any meaningful way, so should be safe from what I worry is coming soon for Europe.

For now tho, I'm definitely less safe than my friends and family back in Sweden. In the short term at least. I don't think Putin is going to change that this year, and probably not next year either, but honestly who knows.

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