Hugh,
Just a thought, many in media are not mentioning the trend of Amazon food delivery. Just in time ( JIT ) to retail is risky. The next evolution opens the door for tyranny and chaos. Centralized distribution centers are easier to control. If retail stores are collapsing, we have to consider that grocery stores are retail stores too. It appears that food vendors are moving to JIT direct delivery. Folks need to expect civil disorder in suburban neighborhoods to happen way earlier into a serious event. – GP
I live good way outside Columbus Ohio. It is a good size test market for lots of companies. Mc Donald’s now also has a home/office delivery. Mc Delivery
None for me thank . But I bet it is a hit here
ENJOY! HA HA !
As a former Commercial truck driver who worked in refrigerated food transport, I can with certainty state ALL food service distribution, from production to distribution is based on centralized or regional warehousing system. We are never much more than 30 days from empty shelves and warehouses. As for “easy to control”, these facilities are generally already guarded by security forces and most are at least fenced in. Hard control is just a matter of armed troops. I think it’s high time for the prudent to recall the lessons learned during WWII for home food production and put them into practice again.
Excellent info. Have heard that some of these food depots are difficult to distinguish and out of the way.
In 1972 while attending college I worked the graveyard shift at a major California market chain. We serviced 165 stores at that warehouse and at that time the 2 million square feet turned over 80% of its inventory every 3 days. Without trucking or in the event of a rail shut down we would be down to the last can of kumquats to ship to the stores. If you use online shopping, you are in charge of the logistics and at the mercy of a lot of people that you have no control of. Someone to blame is a poor excuse for an empty belly. Stocking deep is the only solution for interruptions or complete failure of systems. In discussions about this subject I often ask non believers ” How much do you spend on Insurance per year?” Most insurances are a constantly recurring cost and we all have a bunch of them, Auto, Home, Health etc. . A well stocked larder is only a one time cost as you use and replace what you consume constantly anyway.
I predict the day will come when you will not even or be allowed to enter a Walmart or other store. Their buildings will become distribution points and you will order everything online. You will then drive to the designated pick-up point, pay(if not already online), and load your groceries. This will save these business millions if not billions in employee cost.
My daughter already participates in the online ordering of her groceries. That is exactly what she does–drives to designated pick-up point. Pays online. Never getting out of her car. Never entering the store. She won’t like it when she finds herself trapped and controlled. But it will be too late then.
The obvious solution, then, is to forward order whatever supplies you need, and stock them yourself. This is more in-line with traditional housekeeping practices before the advent of modern shipping methods came to be. LDS has in place a good process of warehousing supplies for consumption up to a year in advance. What is this based on? Experience.
Back before the corner store and urban sprawl, how did people get through the year without having to go to market every week? They put up food as it was available, and in enough quantity to get them through extended periods (perenially). The convenience of going to the local supermarket and having them stock goods instead of the household is a relatively new concept, perhaps less than a 3 or 4 generations old.
I prefer to modulate the supply chain by stocking in depth. It allows me to take better advantage of market shifts, meaning I can save a lot of money over time, and it provides me with the freedom of not having to rely on retailers/wholesalers maintaining adequate stock themselves. Combined with the ability to preserve food on my own, I can make the best of both worlds; the old fashioned way, and the modern method.
What happens when transportation is disrupted due to labor strikes, disasters, shortages?
Any grocery delivery to your door is not going to be confidential.
Prep in private for one thing but most important do what you can to build up the local food system by using CSA’s, local Farmer Markets.
Agreed, and something I was thinking. Nothing digital is private or really secure anymore. The delivery lists can, and will, be given up when asked. They will have a shopping lists of addresses to go to for caches of food. It will happen.
amazon and bezos are satan incarnate!
When are we going to learn that fast and cheap are not always in our best interest?
Have we learned nothing from our trade debacle with china?
Doesn’t make a difference how well made or how cheap that chinese knife is, when we buy their products we are contributing to our own downfall.
If you believe God’s word, you know there is going to be a global government.
Can there be a global government with a spiritually sound, economically and militarily strong, sovereign USA?
I don’t think so. Hence, fundamental transformation needs to occur and this is why we are being attacked on all these fronts.
As we know all to well, this transformation has been taking place for decades and has progressed to the point that it is being openly proclaimed from the proverbial rooftops. We have become so ignorant and apathetic that our “leaders” no longer even bother to hide their disdain for us.
Nations come and go, most of us know how this ends; what we don’t know is when and we have some control over that. Think Nineveh or Abrahams conversation with God concerning the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Can we ever be one nation under God? Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all? Probably not, this side of heaven. Even so, we should keep trying and who knows, are not all things possible with God?
All I know is we had a pretty good thing going and I am embarrassed and pissed that we stand a good chance of losing our freedom on my watch.
In honor of the upcoming memorial day I will add this frustration as well. Americans have been fighting and dying for the freedom of others almost continuously for at least the past 100 years, all over this big blue ball. Now when it is time to defend our own freedom, it doesn’t seem like many of us have much interest in doing what needs doing.
I know, mostly preaching to the quire, knowing you guys and gals are out there, does provide a degree of hope and comfort.
SB, Thanks for all you do.
I concur with Rob & Joe. I myself worked in the produce (wholesale & retail) industry in Los Angeles for 15 years. JIT Foods… God Bless our truckers out there, without them putting way too many hours in a day, “We” in here in America would be like a 3rd world country. A few cans of food on the shelf and long lines waiting for the truck to arrive under armed guards.
There were many times that in the main wholesale produce markets that there was less than a day of inventory to sell/distribute, specially during the 1992 Rodney King riots.
As for canned and dry goods, almost all the centralized warehouses are EAST of the San Andreas fault line. So, when the big one hits and there is no more TCP/IP based communication that JIT relies so heavily on for their inventory programs, nothing is going to get distributed as well as there being no traversable roads in order to distribute the food stuffs.
In my personal retail store that I had, everything that we edible was sold out in a matter of 3-4 hours after the riots started.
Now that I am an IT professional. Believe it when it is said on SB, buy it cheap and stack it deep.
May the blessings of the Good Lord be upon you.
I concur with Rob & Joe. I myself worked in the produce (wholesale & retail) industry in Los Angeles for 15 years. JIT Foods… God Bless our truckers out there, without them putting way too many hours in a day, “We” in here in America would be like a 3rd world country. A few cans of food on the shelf and long lines waiting for the truck to arrive under armed guards.
There were many times that in the main wholesale produce markets that there was less than a day of inventory to sell/distribute, specially during the 1992 Rodney King riots.
As for canned and dry goods, almost all the centralized warehouses are EAST of the San Andreas fault line. So, when the big one hits and there is no more TCP/IP based communication that JIT relies so heavily on for their inventory programs, nothing is going to get distributed as well as there being no traversable roads in order to distribute the food stuffs.
In my personal retail store that I had, everything that we edible was sold out in a matter of 3-4 hours after the riots started.
Now that I am seasoned an IT professional. Believe it when it is said on SB, buy it cheap and stack it deep. Now that I am living east of the continental divide, I am learning all new set of skills to survive.
May the blessings of the Good Lord be upon you.
Rob is definitely correct about the distribution channels for food, however 30 days is probably too optimistic of an estimate for how long stock on hand would last. Just look at a grocery store after a large snow storm.
All the time I hear survivalist minded people talk about how companies will “see the error of their ways” in utilizing JIT, but if anything there is more of a constant move towards it. This is because in most cases the firms look at the cost of “bad service,” which is just an estimate of the amount of revenue they lose by not having something in stock when a customer wants it, and compare it with the inventory costs. If the carrying costs are more they’ll usually just go with JIT delivery with that item as opposed to just stocking it. As long as they view it as more costly to have a lot of safety stock in the stores they’ll continue to use JIT. I know this doesn’t make sense to anyone that has the “two is one and one is none mindset,” when I was learning about JIT while majoring in SCM it didn’t make sense to me either so I asked the professor about what would happen if a there was some kind of crisis that cleaned out the stores and they couldn’t replenish their stock. He just replied, “They just wait a few days until the trucks get there.” Most people simply just don’t think about what if… Plan accordingly.
God Bless