I headed out of the mountain and drove to the city yesterday. My primary reason was to go to Sam’s Club and restock bacon, cheese, chicken, those spices I mentioned, and paper products. I splurged on lamb chops but didn’t buy steak.
I stuck to my list and didn’t buy any Spam, canned chicken, or other food for my prepper pantry. It still cost $370, almost twice what my trips used to cost. A bill like that is why I go quarterly now instead of every month. It’s also why we have slowed adding food to the prepper pantry.
One thing that shocked me was paying $21.98 for a two pack of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil. OK, so it’s 500 square feet, but ouch! The only good news about this purchase is we won’t have to buy any more for two years.
Only two items had gone down in cost: bacon and the cost of a hotdog in the food quart. The four-pound pack of bacon I buy had dropped to $16.98, more than $1 per pound. The hot dog, with a free soda, is now $1.38. Sorry, but I can’t get excited about saving 12 cents when everything else cost more.
Inventory Levels
So prices are higher. What else is new? Well, the shelves are well stocked.
The meat coolers were filled with beef and even more pork. There was a larger variety of salmon than I have seen in a year or three. There was plenty of chicken, even if there wasn’t the variety they used to have. The aisle with toilet paper and paper towels was overflowing. There was a good supply of rice and a big stack of pinto beans. They had more olive oil than I have seen since the start of the war in Ukraine. Pasta was back in stock, although they didn’t have as many varieties as they had a year ago.
Based on my experienced, I would say any depletion of cooking oil and grains caused by the war is no longer evident. I don’t know if panic buying or actual shortages caused the empty shelves I saw last year, but it appears these bulk of these shortages are now behind us.
Some Shortages
As expected, egg supplies were down and they had a limit of two packages. They had only two SKUs of eggs, an 18-pack and a 24-pack, but no larger packages. The price worked out to be $4.19 per dozen. That’s more than twice last year’s price, but it’s a good price in today’s market.
Butter was also in short supply. They had salted butter but no unsalted butter, which my wife uses for baking. The price was ridiculous and more than $3.50 per pound. There were a few other holes on shelves, but nothing like it was during the height of the supply chain crisis.
Are the threats of a food shortage behind us? Were we wrong? Or should we be enjoying this largess while we still can? All I know is it never hurts to prep.
