I
had no idea that things had gotten so bad. Earlier today, my wife
spoke with the manager of a local grocery store because she wanted to
place a large order for some canned goods. What she was told surprised
her, and it certainly surprised me. The manager of this local grocery
store told her that there are numerous nationwide shortages going on at
this moment, and he indicated that there are lots of products that he
simply cannot get right now. When my wife told me what he had said, I
decided that I had to look into this, because I hadn’t heard that canned
goods were in short supply. Well, it turns out that the manager that
my wife spoke with was right on target, and that should deeply alarm all
of us.
One thing that my wife was specifically told was that there is a
nationwide shortage of aluminum cans, and this is having a tremendous
impact on the soda industry.
In fact, things have gotten so bad that Coca-Cola has been forced
to publicly address the situation…
Coke Life, Mello Yellow, Sprite Zero, Fresca and more.
These are among some of the products you may have had trouble locating
on store shelves in recent weeks.
And you’re not alone.
When asked about the situation, Coca-Cola told one Twitter follower:
“We are seeing greater demand for products consumed at home & taking
measures to adapt, working to mitigate the challenge during this
unprecedented time. We appreciate your loyalty to our beverages; please
know that we’re working hard to keep the products you love on the
shelves.”
Apparently the big reason why there is a shortage is because people
are consuming far more beverages at home than usual, and this has
created a huge demand for canned drinks.
Right now, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are primarily focusing on using their
limited supplies of aluminum cans to produce their core products, and
this has made less popular flavors
very difficult to find…
Both Coca Cola and Pepsi have reportedly been forced to
focus on their most popular flavors in order to keep them in stock,
making the less popular flavors harder to find for the time being.
Unfortunately, we aren’t just facing a shortage of aluminum cans.
According
to the Wall Street Journal,
some of the biggest food manufacturers in America are admitting that
there are nationwide shortages of “flour, canned soup, pasta and rice”…
Grocers are having trouble staying stocked with goods
from flour to soups as climbing coronavirus case numbers and continued
lockdowns pressure production and bolster customer demand.
Manufacturers including General Mills Inc., Campbell Soup Co. and
Conagra Brands Inc. say they are pumping out food as fast as they can,
but can’t replenish inventories. Popular items such as flour, canned soup, pasta and rice remain in short supply.
Of course those are precisely some of the key items that preppers tend to stock up on.
I think that millions of Americans can sense what is coming, and they are gathering supplies while they still can.
Meanwhile, the nationwide coin shortage continues to get even worse.
This week, I was stunned to learn that Kroger has announced that it will
“no longer return coin change to customers”…
If you pay with cash at one of Kroger’s cashier
checkouts, you won’t be getting coin change for a while, and it’s
indirectly due to the coronavirus.
Kroger spokesperson Erin Rofles confirmed Friday the grocer will no
longer return coin change to customers. Instead, the remainders from
cash transactions will be applied to customers’ loyalty cards and
automatically used on their next purchase.
That is serious.
This coin shortage is being caused
by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is likely to last for as long as this pandemic persists.
If we have already gotten to the point where the federal government
is unable to produce enough coins for all of our businesses, how long
will it be before we start witnessing a shortage of dollar bills?
At this point, even Walmart is acknowledging the stress that the nationwide coin shortage
is putting on their operations…
Walmart has also been impacted been the shortage. In a statement to WMAZ,
Walmart spokesperson Avani Dudhia, “Like most retailers, we’re
experiencing the affects of the nation-wide coin shortage. We’re asking
customers to pay with card or use correct change when possible if they
need to pay with cash.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has also deeply affected the meat processing
industry. Numerous meat processing facilities all over the nation have
been shut down in recent weeks, and this has limited supplies and pushed
up prices.
In fact, we saw some pretty dramatic price increases
during the month of June…
Once again, meat prices went up.
Overall, beef and veal prices rose 4.8%. Pork prices grew 3.3% and bacon got 8.1% more expensive. Hot dog prices grew 4.9%.
I have repeatedly warned my readers that meat prices were going to go
up substantially, and so hopefully a lot of you out there stocked up
before the price increases hit.
What we have been witnessing over the first half of 2020 should be a
major league wake up call for all of us, because it has become clear
that our system is far more vulnerable to shocks than most people ever
imagined.
If COVID-19 can cause this much chaos, what is going to happen when a crisis that is far more severe comes along?
Even though I write about this stuff on a constant basis, I was
stunned when my wife told me that we couldn’t get the canned goods that
we wanted because a nationwide shortage was happening.
It has become very difficult to keep up with how fast things are
changing, and I expect events to accelerate even more as we head toward
the end of 2020 and beyond.
If you still need to get stocked up for all the chaos that is coming,
I would do so quickly, because supplies are only going to get tighter
the worse things get.
About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change
in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is
Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of
The Economic Collapse Blog,
End Of The American Dream and
The Most Important News,
and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on
dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written
four books that are available
on Amazon.com including
The Beginning Of The End,
Get Prepared Now, and
Living A Life That Really Matters.
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