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A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

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Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#21

Post by bluedino »

MattGaiser wrote: post #13
joncp wrote: post #10

The scarcity of flour, especially bread flour piques my curiosity. I haven't heard about anyone eating vastly more bread than before the quarantine. It's just that everyone is making it at home instead of buying it with meals at restaurants. One would expect the flour not being shipped to the restaurants would be redirected into the retail supply chain but that doesn't appear to be the case. The only explanations I c…

Everyone is buying a mega bag thinking that they will now suddenly do a lot of baking. My mother did this. My grandmother did this. Many of my 23 year old friends did this. They end up baking one loaf and then just forgetting about it in the pantry, but they bought a 20 lb bag because of how much they expected to bake.

So where are all the 2lb bags then?

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#23

Post by Retric »

pengaru wrote: post #19
joncp wrote: post #10

The scarcity of flour, especially bread flour piques my curiosity. I haven't heard about anyone eating vastly more bread than before the quarantine. It's just that everyone is making it at home instead of buying it with meals at restaurants. One would expect the flour not being shipped to the restaurants would be redirected into the retail supply chain but that doesn't appear to be the case. The only explanations I c…

On what planet does anybody pivot to eating home-baked bread without consuming substantially more of it?

The comment is about total bread consumption, not home-baked bread consumption. Home bakers and factories are both using the same basic ingredients, so why can’t supply chain’s easily swap?

And the simple reality is they use different bags for transport and factories to fill the bags. Thus it’s a bag problem not a flour problem.

PS: What’s so interesting about the shutdown is it exposed so much about the supply chain that’s normally hidden. It feels like debugging some third party API has a bug, except on a much larger scale.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#24

Post by TylerE »

phil21 wrote: post #20
joncp wrote: post #10

The scarcity of flour, especially bread flour piques my curiosity. I haven't heard about anyone eating vastly more bread than before the quarantine. It's just that everyone is making it at home instead of buying it with meals at restaurants. One would expect the flour not being shipped to the restaurants would be redirected into the retail supply chain but that doesn't appear to be the case. The only explanations I c…

I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap bag…

I remember reading a similar article about disinfecting wipes - the bottleneck is actually in the plastic containers, not the wipes, and so a few companies have started packaging them in bags like baby wipes.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#25

Post by Scoundreller »

dx87 wrote: post #5

That's actually how a lot of businesses in rural parts of Alaska work, even places that don't require a boat or plane to access. My dad lives right off the highway in a small town in Alaska, and the closest thing to a grocery store is an old airplane hanger that one of the locals runs a general store out of. The owner makes weekly trips to Costco, which is ~4 hours away, and buys as much as they can fit into a big U-…

Rural Croatia too, except it’s a truck that comes to all of the villages 3x/week with staple items. Plays ridiculously stereotypical Croatian music through a loudspeaker to announce his arrival.

And then a meat truck once a week and a fish truck more irregularly.

Took requests as well.

I think of it like villages having Amazon Prime starting in the late 90s.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#26

Post by dorchadas »

renewiltord wrote: post #11
joncp wrote: post #10

The scarcity of flour, especially bread flour piques my curiosity. I haven't heard about anyone eating vastly more bread than before the quarantine. It's just that everyone is making it at home instead of buying it with meals at restaurants. One would expect the flour not being shipped to the restaurants would be redirected into the retail supply chain but that doesn't appear to be the case. The only explanations I c…

I imagine it's folks like me who are baking now for no good reason but to pass the time. I previously didn't eat any bread. Now I'm getting fat.

I concur. I've made three loaves of bread and two pies during all this, and will likely make another loaf this week. Just because I want something to do and wanted to learn how to bake more. I had to get yeast shipped to me from a friend out of state though, as it was already gone here.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#27

Post by mcny »

phil21 wrote: post #20
joncp wrote: post #10

The scarcity of flour, especially bread flour piques my curiosity. I haven't heard about anyone eating vastly more bread than before the quarantine. It's just that everyone is making it at home instead of buying it with meals at restaurants. One would expect the flour not being shipped to the restaurants would be redirected into the retail supply chain but that doesn't appear to be the case. The only explanations I c…

I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap bag…

> Add in all the waste of every 23 year old who has never baked in their life buying 20lbs of flour to go bad in their pantry and things.

How quickly does processed flour go bad? I’d imagine as long as you store in a dry, air-tight box, it should be ok?

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#28

Post by grecy »

Marsymars wrote: post #2

I visited Dawson City in the Yukon last year and was surprised to see Kirkland Signature goods on sale at the general store. Didn't think to ask how they got there.

(I live in the Yukon)

It's extremely common to zip down to Juneau to go shopping and then hop back to the Yukon. It's just a 10 hour one way trip, and when you live in the North that's not so far. Tons of people go there simply to go to Costco (which doesn't exist in the Yukon)

It's also really nice to go in winter when it's -40C/F in the Yukon (all inland) and usually right around freezing in Juneau (coastal)

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#29

Post by Scoundreller »

Retric wrote: post #23
pengaru wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what planet does anybody pivot to eating home-baked bread without consuming substantially more of it?

The comment is about total bread consumption, not home-baked bread consumption. Home bakers and factories are both using the same basic ingredients, so why can’t supply chain’s easily swap? And the simple reality is they use different bags for transport and factories to fill the bags. Thus it’s a bag problem not a flour problem. PS: What’s so interesting about the shutdown is it exposed so much about the supply chain…

I think the joke is that people that start fresh baking bread at home start eating a lot more of it because it’s delicious.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#30

Post by bigiain »

joncp wrote: post #10

The scarcity of flour, especially bread flour piques my curiosity. I haven't heard about anyone eating vastly more bread than before the quarantine. It's just that everyone is making it at home instead of buying it with meals at restaurants. One would expect the flour not being shipped to the restaurants would be redirected into the retail supply chain but that doesn't appear to be the case. The only explanations I c…

Probably because traditional supply chains are awful when they encounter anything except super predictable demand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_distribution_game

I'm guessing the retail supply chain and their wholesalers are a pretty much seperate business and supply chain to the restaurant industry, and a jump in demand for home baking (even if that's probably mostly just going onto household pantry storage) has pushed the traditional supply chain into instability.

Pretty much the same story for toilet paper too. It's not like people need to wipe their arses more in isolation, but the retail market and the business/workspace market supply chains are now flailing around looking for a new barely stable ordering/stocking equilibrium.

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