[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 't')he48thronin, do you ever have problems with employees hassling you for taking photos in the stores?

[the48thronin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 't')he48thronin, do you ever have problems with employees hassling you for taking photos in the stores?

[the48thronin]

Oh yes to continue the thought that failure of JIT would reflect into restaurants and convenience stores etc.

I have had 3 conversations with restaurant managers in the last 2 days here in Reno, I eat at mostly the same places here and usually stay 2 to 3 days when I come here, so I have asked people who have seen me over years to sit down with my video camera and discuss distribution.

Produce is a problem, because most of it is imported, sea food also seems to suffer at times and much of it is also imported. Each manager did mention that they had gone outside their normal wholesaler for some day to day items on a random basis due to lack of supply, but none of them felt it was more frequent or more pressing than normally in the restaurant business except for one recurring theme. Special sale items, they all mentioned lack of sufficient supply for the resulting sales volume. So KFC isn't the only one running out of special sale items.

The restaurants I talked to were
1. A national franchise fast food sandwich shop.
2. A national franchise sit down dinner $15 approximate average meal plus drinks.
3. A local name non franchise higher end lunch and dinner restaurant in a casino. Approximate 20 dollar average meal plus drinks.

The food service supplier of both sit down restaurants was the same wholesaler. They each mentioned that they were being pursued franticly by that wholesalers competition, and mentioned that pursuit seemed much more intense.

edit added below;

Reading what I had posted and reviewing the notes I took, I saw that I had forgotten to mention one item that did cause my ears to pick up a little. Each of the sit down restaurant managers had a good deal to say about BREAD problems.. The orders being shorted mostly. Each of them had been using local grocery stores to cover the bread shortages. I asked if bread use was up, and each said no, that the wholesale bread guys ( different than the food wholesalers) were shorting orders for some specialty breads, ( English muffins and whole grains) due to nonavailability. That is a JIT failure.

[JJ]

My bosses son works up high in management of Walmart. he's going to ask him tonight if he's noticed anything. An elderly man came into our produce department today who works for WMart. He said he's never, ever seen the store so empty.

[alokin]

I still cannot see any shortages in Australia (maybe I'm getting very short sighted?).
What I don't understand is that exactly when oil is cheap, when ships are waiting for cargo, commodity prices are down and demand is down as well there should be shortages??
I would have expected shortages last year when petrol prices were high and maybe trucks have stopped for this reason, when lots of corn was converted into diesel etc.
Why should JIT break down when oil is cheap, ships waiting for transport and there is lots of ideling factory capacity?

[Jotapay]

In Austin, we are having zero supply issues. All stores are stuffed and most are still in business, although I've seen a few go out of business. Nothing to get too excited about yet. Groceries are plentiful. Store parking lots are full. I could buy a few tons of bulk dried goods at Costco if I wanted. I could buy a few dozen pounds of pork loin at Costco for $2.50/pound and ribeyes for about $8/lb. Vegetables out the wazoo. HEBs are full.

I know JJ is only about 1:30 from me, to the Northwest. But we have no supply issues here at all. Texas seems to be where they want to concentrate growth right now so we are being very well-fed. There are literally billboards on the side of the road around here that advertise the NAFTA Super-Highway (or Trans-Texas corridor) with the words "Growth" and "Jobs" in the same message.

[JJ]

ninety minutes...

[the48thronin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('alokin', 'I') still cannot see any shortages in Australia (maybe I'm getting very short sighted?).
What I don't understand is that exactly when oil is cheap, when ships are waiting for cargo, commodity prices are down and demand is down as well there should be shortages??
I would have expected shortages last year when petrol prices were high and maybe trucks have stopped for this reason, when lots of corn was converted into diesel etc.
Why should JIT break down when oil is cheap, ships waiting for transport and there is lots of ideling factory capacity?

[TWilliam]

I nominate the above for Post Of The Year.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', 'I') nominate the above for Post Of The Year.

[the48thronin]

AAAW shucks he says as he hides his face behind his hands LOL

I have seen some pretty good posts here, Thanks anyway tho!

[the48thronin]

I have been asked to explain some of the terms I have been using and help someone else see the effects I have been pointing out. So I will try to explain shelf dressing.


This is a picture taken today at a shelf that LOOKED full of English muffins. I was there just after the store clerk had dressed the bread shelves by taking English muffins that were there and stretching them along the shelf by placing them standing on end one deep along 6 feet of shelf and removing the price tags of the breads that did not exist. I pulled out one package and put my cell phone in behind to shoot this picture. Many of the freezer pictures I have been posting show 1 box deep stacking on shelves that would normally have 5 or 10 deep stacking, they even place boxes on edge to hide the empty space behind them.

In the lunch meat section they had restocked the items and replaced the Johnsonville brats back into their own area, BUT then I noticed were one brand of salami spread into the space 3 other products were supposed to occupy without even bothering to remove the different price labels on the shelves.

[timmac]

[quote="Jotapay"]In Austin, we are having zero supply issues. All stores are stuffed and most are still in business, although I've seen a few go out of business. Nothing to get too excited about yet. Groceries are plentiful. Store parking lots are full. I could buy a few tons of bulk dried goods at Costco if I wanted. I could buy a few dozen pounds of pork loin at Costco for $2.50/pound and ribeyes for about $8/lb. Vegetables out the wazoo. HEBs are full.




Same here in Las Vegas, No shortage of anything, our stores are full and no dressing appears to be happening at all, I can go to Sams Club and stock up semi loads of food at any day of the week, in fact we bought $700.00 worth of cleaning supplies for our business and it did not make a dent, many in the store with shopping carts full and extra stuff on the floors because shelves were full, the Walmart next door was also full, people every where with carts full and trucks in the back unloading, our auto parts stores still have the same stock as always and I have ordered a special part for my motorhome and they can get it in 3 days, no delay, Vegas is having problems like every where else but why is our stores full and others say there's is empty, or are they just streching the truth.

When truly folks are going without and stores are closing because lack of delivers than I will eat my words, but I have not seen or heard of any real problems other than some stores are changing because of sells are down.

[wisconsin_cur]

certain kinds of coffee @ one of our local groceries over the last few months. The dark roast I was drinking is gone and the two pound bags are only one deep across the shelf.

I am having a lot of interest in following this thread. I interpret it as reduced credit line for stores so they are walking closer to the JIT edge to keep their outlays low, but I guess time will tell.

[threadbear]

Clarity is Missing Link--Wall Street Journal:

For a man who sells the chip "brains" that power millions of TVs, cameras and other gadgets, Levy Gerzberg found himself surprisingly unplugged last fall. In just a few short weeks, business virtually stopped.

He still marvels at the speed of the collapse. "I think about it today, and ask, 'Why did it happen so fast?' " says Mr. Gerzberg, CEO of chip designer Zoran Corp.

The reason is now starting to become clear. The world's complex "just in time" manufacturing supply chains are making it increasingly tough for Zoran, and any other single link in the chain, to know what's going on just a few links away. Sometimes, Zoran itself doesn't even know how its own chips are used: One batch it thought was destined for DVD players instead turned up in digital picture frames.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260855682928885.html

[alokin]

But.... the Chinese slaves are sitting there eagerly waiting to make some money, and they are creative in doing so.
It could be that they produce something for their fellow slaves though. On the other hand side, if you produce chicken in the US and you are not able to ship it for whatever, then you might simply pack the chicken and sell it whole. This won't be bad for the American consumer, who needs cut up chicken anyway? Things might change but I guess as long as drought does not knock out your harvest and there's sufficient diesel to truck the stuff around you will still have food in the stores, but maybe it will look slightly different (maybe mince instead of ready made burgers).

[JJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('timmac', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jotapay', 'I')n Austin, we are having zero supply issues. All stores are stuffed and most are still in business, although I've seen a few go out of business. Nothing to get too excited about yet. Groceries are plentiful. Store parking lots are full. I could buy a few tons of bulk dried goods at Costco if I wanted. I could buy a few dozen pounds of pork loin at Costco for $2.50/pound and ribeyes for about $8/lb. Vegetables out the wazoo. HEBs are full.




Same here in Las Vegas, No shortage of anything, our stores are full and no dressing appears to be happening at all, I can go to Sams Club and stock up semi loads of food at any day of the week, in fact we bought $700.00 worth of cleaning supplies for our business and it did not make a dent, many in the store with shopping carts full and extra stuff on the floors because shelves were full, the Walmart next door was also full, people every where with carts full and trucks in the back unloading, our auto parts stores still have the same stock as always and I have ordered a special part for my motorhome and they can get it in 3 days, no delay, Vegas is having problems like every where else but why is our stores full and others say there's is empty, or are they just streching the truth.

When truly folks are going without and stores are closing because lack of delivers than I will eat my words, but I have not seen or heard of any real problems other than some stores are changing because of sells are down.

[jdmartin]

This is a great thread.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Wallyworld to pick up a couple of my USA items that I can't get anywhere else - double-edged razor blades, shaving soap, and shoelaces. Razor blades had a few packs on the shelf, I bought two to be safe. Shaving soap was replaced by another version, more expensive, and country of origin unnoted (I'm guessing Chinese). Went back to get the shoelaces and there were literally about 10 sets total left on a double rack that a month earlier had been full (I bought them a month earlier as well for different shoes). I asked a salesperson and they said they hadn't come in for a while, they were switching over to a new brand also. So I'll go back this weekend and see what it looks like.

But thinking about this thread reminds me of other things. We feed our dog a "natural" diet consisting of fresh chicken and rehydrated vegetables. We buy a certain brand of chicken (no hormones/antibis), it's a popular brand and not at all a specialty item. For about the last 7 or 8 months it has been a pain to get the chicken - we end up buying everything they have when we see it, because 3 out of 4 times when you go into the store it's out of stock. I have noticed as well a lot of meat items out of stock at the butcher counter that used to always be there.

I'm sure part of it is just because of economics, people not buying some of the stuff so stores aren't stocking it. On the other hand, for things like the chicken, there's no good explanation other than not enough shipments because it's a popular product.

[Caffeine]

One good sign: For a while now, there has been a farmer's market around here. Now there are MORE farmer's markets. I would guess that more total produce is being sold at these as a result.

I think that some genuine effort toward relocalization, with regard to fresh produce, may be occurring around here.

[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JJ', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('timmac', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jotapay', 'I')n Austin, we are having zero supply issues. All stores are stuffed and most are still in business, although I've seen a few go out of business. Nothing to get too excited about yet. Groceries are plentiful. Store parking lots are full. I could buy a few tons of bulk dried goods at Costco if I wanted. I could buy a few dozen pounds of pork loin at Costco for $2.50/pound and ribeyes for about $8/lb. Vegetables out the wazoo. HEBs are full.




Same here in Las Vegas, No shortage of anything, our stores are full and no dressing appears to be happening at all, I can go to Sams Club and stock up semi loads of food at any day of the week, in fact we bought $700.00 worth of cleaning supplies for our business and it did not make a dent, many in the store with shopping carts full and extra stuff on the floors because shelves were full, the Walmart next door was also full, people every where with carts full and trucks in the back unloading, our auto parts stores still have the same stock as always and I have ordered a special part for my motorhome and they can get it in 3 days, no delay, Vegas is having problems like every where else but why is our stores full and others say there's is empty, or are they just streching the truth.

When truly folks are going without and stores are closing because lack of delivers than I will eat my words, but I have not seen or heard of any real problems other than some stores are changing because of sells are down.