Just-in-Time Technology, Food Disaster Looming
June 11, 2011
Guest Post: by Jim Presley
…a fear I have had for some time: We have little or no warehousing backup in the event of a supply shortage. Our concentrated supermarket supply system uses JIT (Just-in-Time) technology efficiencies allowed by computers and the Internet.
But my fears have centered upon a massive increase of unsatisfiable demand. This is a far more likely scenario than an immediate shutdown of food production at the source.
My business is catastrophe insurance. We know how quickly supermarket shelves go completely bare when people fear a blizzard or hurricane. This same thing could happen here in the US but it would be a permanent shortage. Here is how it would happen:
First understand that almost all the US population buys food for a week or just a few days. They make trips to the market once or twice a week. They have little or no food reserves. In econ-speak, their ‘preferences’ are to have reserve of one or two weeks. But this preference is founded upon the public belief in the certainty and integrity of the food supply system. We have no worry that when we go to the market it will be chock full of everything we want.
But imagine that something happened to change those preferences for reserves. Suppose the typical American wanted a two-month or six month reserve? This could happen when they see food prices escalating beyond reach and they wish to buy reserve food while it is still within their price range. Imagine what would happen:
The demand for food would quintuple or more within a short time and so shoppers would see empty shelves in the market, further stimulating panic buying, just as in a hurricane or blizzard. This would mark the end of our reliable food supply system. The stores would be picked clean almost instantly and people’s preferences would change even more toward having a year of reserve food or more to protect themselves from outages. Given that we have no warehousing and a near-fixed resupply capability, we would be looking at a PERMANENT condition of no food on the shelves. Armed men would meet the resupply trucks when they arrive at the market.
Martial law, price controls, and food rationing with the then current President as Commander, would follow, as well as a suspension of our many rights (to bear arms, prohibitions against search and seizure, property rights). This would be with the blessing of the many hungry people.
We have a precarious situation indeed. And the only way to protect oneself and family is to PREPARE.
The author graduated from Harvard in Economics, and Stanford with an MBA.
Ken adds: I couldn’t agree more. I have witnessed the just-in-time strategy while working for a previous employer, and know for a fact that most businesses now operate this way. The methodology, although profitable in that it optimizes throughput, it presents very real risks. JIT techniques that are used in food supply and distribution chains are very worrisome if one considers the possibilities and scenarios of major disruption.
The scenario that Jim describes above is very real, to the extent that simply enough people (a critical threshold) deciding to store up extra food could set off a chain reaction that would be difficult to recover from. With food price inflation already well underway, and given the disastrous condition of the US economic outlook, price inflation (dollar devaluation) is assuredly part of our future. The time to stock up is now. Think about it.
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Buy your Canned Tuna, Now?
April 13, 2011Long term radiation effects, in Tuna?
With many of the long term effects from the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster still ahead of us, a serious consideration should be made regarding the food chain and the possible radioactive contamination thereof. In this example, let’s look at Tuna fish. Is it safer to buy canned tuna now, before possible contamination into its food chain? Or, won’t it really matter.
People in Japan consume a tremendous amount of seafood. Japan is the worlds largest consumer and importer of fish. Tuna not only is fished and consumed by the Japanese, but tuna is widely consumed around the globe.
Many of us are most familiar with tuna in its canned form. Apart from those that enjoy their tuna sashimi style (raw fresh fish served in thin slices), most people will get their tuna pre-cooked and packaged in a small can.
The question is, will tuna that has swum off the coast of Japan, become contaminated with enough radioactive contamination such that we as humans will be affected negatively?
Lets look at a few facts first, like, which types of tuna will swim off the coast of Japan, and what is it that these tuna fish eat themselves?
Tuna that is caught near Japan
Pacific Bluefin tuna are caught in the seas off Kochi (Shikoku Island), Miyagi, and Hokkaido Prefectures in Japan.
They spawn in the Western Pacific between Okinawa and the Philippines and the Sea of Japan and they migrate over 6,000 nautical miles to the Eastern Pacific, eventually returning back to their birth waters to spawn again.
Southern Bluefin tuna can be caught off the coasts of Shizuoka, Kochi, Kagoshima, and Miyagi Prefectures in Japan.
Albacore tuna is caught off the coasts of Miyagi, Kochi, Mie, and Miyazaki Prefectures in Japan.
Yellowfin tuna is caught off the coasts of Shizuoka, Miyagi, and Kochi Prefectures in Japan.
Big-eyed tuna is caught off the shores of Miyagi, Kagoshima, Kochi, Shizuoka, Kanagawa, and Hokkaido Prefectures in Japan.
What do Tuna eat?
Tuna mostly eat small fish ranging from 1.5 inches up to 6 inches. Tuna will also eat squid, and very occasionally will consume crustaceans.
The small fish that tuna will eat include skipjack herring, flying fish, lancetfish, puffer fish, triggerfish and rabbitfish.
60% fish
20% squid
15% crustaceans
If tuna eat smaller fish like Herring, then what do the Herring eat?
Herring (a.k.a. trash fish) eat mostly plankton, as well as algae and some kelp.
If tuna eat squid, then what do squid eat?
Squids are carnivorous. The smaller species of squid mostly eat shrimp, and other small fish.
How could radiation enter the fish food-chain?
So now that we have an idea of what type of tuna is caught off Japan, and what it is that the tuna eat, lets hypothesize how radioactive particles could be ingested into this food chain.
We know that they have been dumping tremendous amounts of radioactive water into the Pacific ocean. This is the water that they have been spraying onto the reactors, fuel rods, and fuel pools while trying to keep them from entirely melting down. The problem is, there has been partial meltdown and the radiation is traveling with the water runoff, which is currently being dumped into the ocean (some water is being diverted into storage tanks).
Of the types of radiation involved, Iodine-131 is of least concern (in the context of this post subject) because it’s half-life is only 8 days. After 80 days, its affect is considered entirely gone.
Of much higher concern is Cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years (considered gone after 300 years). Of even higher concern is Plutonium-239 which has an unimaginable half-life of 24,000 years (considered gone after 240,000 years).
We know that both of these radioactive substances are present at the Fukushima plant, and have been found in the soil all over the region around Fukushima – in high quantities. We don’t know how much has been flowing into the Pacific ocean – we’ve heard a lot of numbers regarding Iodine-131, but scarcely a mention of Cesium or Plutonium. Perhaps this is because in the same sentence the reports can say, “but Iodine-131 only has a half-life of 8 days”. Most of the Sheeple may forget about the words, Cesium and Plutonium, since the main-stream-media rarely mentions them.
The radiation in the seawater is surely getting diluted, however fish are swimming in the water, and the diluted particles of Cesium and Plutonium will remain somewhere in the oceans for 300 to 240,000 years. Do you know how fish stay alive? They constantly are passing water through their mouths into their gills – never ending. Some of the radiation will ‘stick’ and enter their little fish bodies.
Not only do little fish stay alive this way, but also big fish. So, not only will big fish get their own radiation through water injection through their gills, etc… but the big fish also eat the small fish. Effectively then, they are getting a double-whammy. More radiation.
The big fish are then caught for processing, distribution and consumption by humans. Logical thinking suggests that the closer these fish are caught to Japan, the more likely they will have some amount of contamination.
Where does the ‘canned’ tuna come from?
About 68 percent are caught from the Pacific Ocean, 22 percent from the Indian Ocean, and the remaining 10 percent from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
Regarding the U.S. tuna market,
“Solid White Tuna” as stated on the can is ‘Albacore only’ and is regulated by the FDA.
“Chunk Light Tuna” is mostly from the species, Skipjack, but it can include others such as Bigeye and Yellowfin, in any combination.
When you open a can of tuna, you don’t know where the actual tuna was caught. The canned tuna supply chain surely varies depending on deals made, the companies involved, etc…
Odds are of course, that the tuna in that particular can may not have been caught off the shore of Japan – it could have been caught in any other number of places in the Pacific. Lots of these tuna migrate their way to the west coast U.S., but it takes awhile – years in some cases.
No doubt the food supply chain will be examined further as time goes on, particularly if the situation continues to worsen at the Fukushima nuclear plant (It’s already a level-7, the highest on the nuke disaster scale). True results may not be measured for many years to come while looking back at cancer rates.
No amount of radiation ingestion is ‘OK’ though. A single Cesium-137 particle stuck in your body could start the chain reaction that leads to cancer – it’s all about ‘odds’. Some people get it, and some people don’t.
After all, during the 1950′s they were blowing up atomic bombs in the ocean… We’re still here – except one wonders how many more would still be here…
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Grocery Food Supply Chain, Risks and Survival
November 29, 2010Permalink
I read a very good article today touching on the food supply chain and its fragility due to over-active efficiencies, much of which rings true with me.
Among other things, the article promotes the idea of growing ones own survival garden to augment ones own food supply, namely using the square-foot-gardening technique (something I will be trying in the Spring, rather than my traditional type garden).
More striking however, and something that I have been keenly aware of for some time, is the underlying excessive demand for efficiency which places undue risks on the systems that supply and distribute our food.
Rather than repeating words that I’ve posted before, it is refreshing to read the words of others who realize the same risks.
Here is an excerpt from the article, written by Giordano Bruno at Neithercorp Press,
Survive Anything! Chapter 2: Food Crisis
The problem of storage and backstock is widespread in the U.S. and the culprit is actually one which we have been trained to admire; efficiency. It is because of the over-application of efficiency in grocery models and in the freight sector that most outlets carry little to no backstock in goods. Instead, they order goods as quickly as they sell out, refilling shelves on a product by product basis. This means that in most grocers, what you see on the shelf, is all that they have. The speed of trucking deliveries makes this business model possible, but its operation suffers from a seriously fatal flaw…
Grocery stores may seem like a bounty of goods at first glance, but if freight shipments shut down, or even slowed, those aisles would empty within the span of a few days. Many households in America operate on the same faulty “efficiency”. They rely on the weekly trip to the grocer to maintain the pantry while also attempting to save money by reducing backstock. It’s a frayed rope holding up too much weight, a completely inflexible system that cannot withstand any deviation from the set routine. One unexpected disaster could render the entire food and agriculture distribution network immobile.
Many grocery chains also function on a line of credit from banks while operating at a loss. Profits are poured directly into the liabilities the companies incur from loans and then more money is borrowed to continue ordering goods. Some stores in the chain (flagship stores) usually bring in enough money to cover the red ink of the other branches, however, what if banks were to cut off credit completely to a grocery chain? Or maybe ALL grocery chains? The cycle of debt, to sales, to profit, to debt, becomes disrupted. Any stores that rely solely on credit to stay open for business would immediately lose the ability to bring in new stock. Again, we are faced with empty shelves in less than a week.
This scenario is entirely possible in the U.S. today, especially in the event that big banks institute capital retention in order to protect themselves from a further collapse of investment markets. Banks have already restricted loans to consumers down to the bare minimum. A restriction of loans to the business sector in the near future is not that far fetched.
Read the article in its entirety here, Survive Anything! Chapter 2: Food Crisis
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The Bees are Disappearing!
February 12, 2010
Another reason to store food
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is yet another reason why we should store adequate food supplies and remain vigilant in our efforts to learn as much as we can to become more self sufficient. Learn how to garden, learn self pollination techniques, and most of all be aware of the threats that could disrupt the delicate balance of supplying food to the millions of people who have no idea how to feed themselves if they had to.
Food Supply Disruption
The disappearance of more than one third of the population of honey bee colonies in North America and Europe is largely going unreported by the main stream media, and is an alarming example of a single point of failure which could severely disrupt the food supply chain that hundreds of millions of us depend upon.
Colony Collapse Disorder
First noticed during 2006, the US has lost 35% of its bees, and is losing more every year. The cost of hives that farmers use for pollination has increased 300% in just a few years. The cause of the collapse is still not fully known, however current findings and opinions include that it may be from drought, viruses, pesticides, parasites, chemicals, and even cell phone towers or transmissions.
If the bees disappear, we only have four years left
Most people do not realize the significance of this threat. These bees are responsible for pollination of most of our crops. I read that Albert Einstein once said, “if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
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Basics of Food Preps
January 29, 2010
Disruption to the food supply chain
A basic essential to survivalism is having enough food to eat and water to drink. In today’s modern world, we take it for granted that there will always be food on the grocery store shelves. There are many built-in assumptions to that thought process. Here are a few examples of what could disrupt the supply chain of having food available at our grocery stores (most grocery stores have only a few days supply on hand).
- trucking or transportation system breakdown (there are many ways for this to happen)
- regional disaster (hurricane, earthquake, fire, etc…)
- panic due to pandemic, terrorism, or economic collapse
- power outage (local, regional, or worse)
- food shortages caused by large scale crop failures
The systems in place from the large scale mass producing farms, through the distribution chain to the grocery stores, are maximized to produce the food for the hundreds of millions of us. It was not long ago when much of the food we eat was produced locally or even in our own backyard gardens. Today, tens of millions of us live in city centers and their suburbs while we rely on the food manufacture & distribution pipeline to run perfectly in the background to bring us our food. Wherever there is a system in place that is so essential to modern day living, we must first recognize it, and second, prepare for its disruption. Having enough stored food is the most responsible thing you can do to become more self sufficient in your life.
Get started with your food preps
The way to get started is quite simple. You start small. The way that Lauren and I started was simply buying a few more of the items that we normally would purchase during a grocery store run. If we were normally picking up 4 cans of green beans, we would get 6. Instead of 1 bottle of honey, we would get 2. Doing it this way makes it easy on the pocket book too. One important thing to remember is to concentrate on buying the foods that you would normally eat. Don’t go out and buy all of the stereotypical food storage products (many of which are perfectly fine), I’m saying that for a normal short to mid term storage inventory, you should stock up on the foods that you are used to eating.
When you are storing your extra food, develop a system that allows you to rotate your stock. Use the oldest first, etc… There are many ways to go about this, but one simple method that we use with some of our supplies is that we always pull inventory from the right, or the front (depending on if your stock is front-back or left-right oriented). New stock goes to the back of the row or to the left side of the row. For longer term storage it always make sense to use a black sharpie pen and date the product (month / year).
How much food to store?
The quantity of food storage is a personal question that only you can answer. In my opinion, at a minimum you should have 30 days food preps for each member of the family living in the house. This will get you through the majority of the most likely minor disruptions that could occur. Preparing beyond 30 days begins to account for the larger scale disruption scenarios, while the odds of occurrence goes down as the scale of the disruption scenario goes up. Although it may be less likely for a large scale power grid failure due to terrorism than it is for an ice storm that keeps you inside for a week, just imagine the horrible consequences when large numbers of people run out of food for more than a week. Look what happened recently in Haiti as a result of their massive earthquake. People were killing for food within days. It is a established fact that the veneer of civilization is so thin, that after 3 days without food there will be chaos.
The choice is yours. The more food you have in storage, the less dependent you are on the system that only has a 3 day supply in the distribution chain, and the better you will sleep at night.
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