This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Sysco declares force majeure, raises grocery prices
Food
inflation driven by freezing weather in Florida during December and in
Mexico during February, is hitting the US supermarkets in the coming
day’s. Sysco sent out an alert that announced an “Act of God”, to
address their contracted supply issues.
The cold of the Superbowl weekend in Texas, has had a more lasting
impact than on just the game plans for lots of travelers. The deep cold
sank into the produce fields of northern Mexico, destroying fresh
produce crops. This is the biggest page 16 story, about to hit a
headline, that you have seen in a while. Your restaurants will be low
on fresh produces for weeks. They will have to raise prices
significantly or cut the produce out of the menu.
On Feb. 8, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported
prices of $22.95-24.95 for two-layer cartons of 4×4, 5×5 and 5×6
vine-ripe field-grown tomatoes from Mexico, up from $6.95-9.95 the
week before and $5.95-7.95 the year before.
This cold storm has brought to the food growing region the coldest
temps in 50 years. This has caused damaged to most of the fresh produce
available to US supermarkets in the winter spring season. This is
going to impact the price you pay at the Supermarket anywhere in the
North American continent.
This
event will add to the worlds food supply issues already impacted by
fires in Russia, rains in Australia, droughts in China, and now freezing
temperatures in Florida & Mexico. Here are some quotes on the
topic
“The last time there was a freeze of this severity was
1957,” said Jerry Wagner, director of sales and marketing for Nogales,
Ariz.-based Farmer’s Best. “It’s still too early to tell, but there’s
a lot of damage.”“It’s been a rough day,” said Lee Anne Oxford, marketing director
for Raleigh, N.C.-based grower-shipper L&M Cos. Inc. “Right now we
have all of our growers out in various fields. We’re expecting to
regroup over the weekend and hopefully know where we stand by Sunday.”
“The early reports are still coming in but most are
showing losses of crops in the range of 80 to 100%. Even shade house
product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to
have a clearer picture from growers and field supervisors, but these
growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over half a century.”
“Florida normally is a major supplier for these items as
well but they have already been struck with severe freeze damage in
December and January and up until now have had to purchase product out
of Mexico to fill their commitments, that is no longer an option.” Via
Sysco Alert
“Supplies of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other
vegetables from Mexico will be severely limited until at least March
following an early February freeze.”
This event will push up the price of produce in the US for the next
few months. The bigger question is if the US wheat crop was damaged by
the cold weather before the heavy snow fell to blanket it.
H/T Wattsupwiththat
Links of Interest to Article
»
- advertisements -
I deny it. Look at the number of hurricanes in the gulf and atlantic these last five years.
See post at 22:38 above.
There appears to be a higher than usual frequency of extreme weather events because you have spent the past couple of years fixated on the MSM and their silly crusade to see global warming manifested in every change in temperature, pressure and humidity.
No, you're an idiot looking for a rationalization for what you can't understand.
I deny it. There have been almost no major hurricanes since 2005. All of the "leading scientists" like Al Gore had predicted that we would see increased hurricanes and Manhattan would be 20 feet under water. Bad weather has been around since the beginning of time. There are records of severe droughts and floods going back as far as history has been recorded.
The predictions are for higher intensity storms, not more frequent ones.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/extreme-weather-global-warming.htm
Learn something. You may embarrass yourself less often, or at least reduce the intensity of your stupidity.
Hey dipshit, read it and weep. The Weather Isn't Getting Weirder The latest research belies the idea that storms are getting more extreme.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870442220457613030099212663...
Hahahaha...the opinion page of the most biased news source in the US? You may as well have linked fucking Pravda.
Here's a link to the actual work from Dr. Campo et al:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.776/full
A choice quote from the work itself:
Scientists don't shy away from pointing out the weaknesses in their work, unlike the ACC denial crowd who are so desperate to prove their thesis that they will jump on any and every opportunity they find to try and back up their faulty position. Just look at how many denier sites have referenced this ridiculous bit of 'evidence' in the past two days. Simply pathetic.
So would you rather believe the editorial staff of a business rag...or a barometer?
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1674
Perhaps you think that 500 year heatwaves 3.6 sigmas to the right and massive flooding in China and Pakistan, in the same year, are mere coincidences?
I weep for your lack of critical thinking skills alone.
Why don't we just use a quote from said Dr. Campo referring to the study:
"The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project is the latest attempt to find out, using super-computers to generate a dataset of global atmospheric circulation from 1871 to the present.
As it happens, the project's initial findings, published last month, show no evidence of an intensifying weather trend. "In the climate models, the extremes get more extreme as we move into a doubled CO2 world in 100 years," atmospheric scientist Gilbert Compo, one of the researchers on the project, tells me from his office at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "So we were surprised that none of the three major indices of climate variability that we used show a trend of increased circulation going back to 1871."
Hey Snowshit, Al Gore needs a BJ>
Hey fucktard, insults don't make a false conclusion more true.
I just learned on the golf channel, that in 1962 it snowed at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Who says TV cannot be edukayshunal
I just learned on the golf channel, that in 1962 it snowed at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Who says TV cannot be edukayshunal
Uh, you do realize that hurricanes occur outside the United States, correct? I beleive they call them typhoons. Moreover, the anti-science on this thread is...is...i don't know but it certainly isnt becoming of any intelligent conversation. Honest people can debate climate change or whatever you want to call it but to say it's impossible that it is occuring and to mock scientists is throroughly dissapointing for the high standards most on this site adhere to.
Too true; it feels like a meeting of the flat-earth society some days.
Duuude, hurricanes are an Atlantic Ocean phenomena, typhoons are their Pacific Ocean equivalent. There's a little education for you, get some more before you do something dangerous.
semantics, dude. they are all cyclones. a hurricane by any othee name is still a cyclone and vice versa
No, higher unemployment is due to the freezing...;)
I thought rising prices were due to high unemployment.
No No. Unemployment being high is causing prices to rise. Munchies dude. Everyone has it backwards.
You guys think the Mexican Cartels give a rat's ass about tomatoes?
all of you have it wrong
rising prices are due to global warming
which causes it to be colder
at least here on earth...but causes the ice caps to melt on other planets
its the war on drugs which causes the cartels not to give a rats ass about tomatoes
And to bring the conversation full circle: drugs being illegal leads to dope price inflation.
The War on (Cheap) Drugs!
Just go the fruit and vegetables markets in the morning. There you'll see that the supply is way down this year.
My wife likes to go there to buy the vegetables and every times she comes back she talks about the sellers complaining about bad supply due to bad harvests.
My garden gives me a steady supply of chard, collards, arugula, and lettuce in a normal Dallas winter. It's all dead except for a few plants near the house.
Don't tell Barry O the arugula is dead, he'll get all panicky and sneak out for a smoke.
Ah....but what kind?
High food prices does not equate inflation BECAUSE food and energy prices DO NOT cause inflation. That is written in stone. Repeat after me - There is no inflation.
This is not the inflation you are looking for.
"Turn out the lights - Don't try to save me -
You may be wrong, for all I know, but you might be right."
Good article and good points!
But I have to say it. Repeat after me. Cold weather or other causes of supply shortages are not "inflation".
Inflation is a real concept, whose meaning is obliterated (dare I say this is "word inflation") when it is used so casually to describe unrelated phenomena like freezing weather.
Inflation is an expansion of credit in our regime of irredeemable paper money. This can lead to rising prices (as in the US in the 1970's) and it can accompany falling prices, certainly some prices can fall drastically (as in Japan 1990-????).
OK, even worse, we've got two synergistic forces raising prices, severe climate and monetary inflation. And what about oil prices? Holy shit!
Thank you Bearster. My sentiments precisely.
You must be an ivory tower economist to claim that.
When people in the US buy the groceries they do not care that high prices are due to oil supply shortages caused by peak oil, record hot weather decimating European grain harvests, India's growing population buying much more sugar, Chinese farmers hoarding cotton or cold weather decimating tomato stocks: prices are going up and more money has to be paid.
Consumer inflation metrics are supposed to measure prices going up - regardless of the reason for it. Otherwise it's a meaningless concept.
MCT: tsunamis and the Big Ones off the Oahu coast both qualify as waves. It's a matter of amplitude and wavelength. I think we'd agree that inflation's wavelength is what makes it so destructive--in contrasdt, the giant waves off Oahu don't even make it to the coast line except in rare conditions. They are more like getting smacked in the head with a temporary shortage of ice-sensitive fruits and vegetables--and interestingly, price will get you the veggies you want in half the forecast time.
Regards, from a non-whiner.....
So do you agree that 'core CPI' is a low-pass wavelength filter?
Isn't that why economists have distinct terms for each phenomenon?
Monetary inflation: expanding monetary base.
...which can often lead to...
Price inflation: the only kind people from America to Egypt care about.
People in Egypt don't see higher food prices from the Fed printing more dollars, as the link between more dollars and higher food prices is extremely weak.
'Extremely weak' as in less than 0.1% from the 40%+ surge in global food prices, via very indirect channels.
There's even a channel where more dollars decrease global food price inflation: higher US prices reduce demand somewhat, which decreases global food prices. (but this effect is small too)
Food prices are supply and demand driven and global commodity prices are inversely correlated to the dollar so more dollars will still keep the global price more or less constant.
Yup. Under increasing pressure from rising prices, Fed and others will increasingly become inclined to argue that 'it's all in our heads' and not really inflation because the book says so. And books, especially our books, never lie. So go home, consumer, and blow your nose on some $50 Kleenex.
Mexico crop loss 80 to 100 percent - Growers invoke Force Majuere
http://www.iceagenow.com/Mexico_crop_loss_80_to_100_percent.htm
You say tomatoes, bitches! I say Tomahtoes, beeotches!
Smithsonian economics just got one upped by mother earth.
Indeed, and we all know the axiomatic truth proclaimed by Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and Ron Paul:
Furthermore, as we all know AGW and its temperature predictions of increased weather volatility causing higher highs and lower lows has been proven wrong again by these events. Surface temperature readings are manipulated by pro-taxation pro-government liberal scientists.
Independent temperature readings conducted by libertarian activists, local militiamen, the Drudge Report and Fox News have proven it beyond doubt that the weather in Texas and Mexico was just fine, that low Super Bowl temperatures were the result of a failure in the air conditioning system, and that the food shortages and failed crops are the result of excess Fed liquidity and Wall Street speculators, helped by the Barack Obama White House.
Spread the truth!
Anytime the temperature is above 90 degrees or below 50 degrees it was cause by man. Anytime it rains, snows, sleets, it was caused by man. Tornados, hurricanes, draughts, floods, and even earthquakes are caused by man. Cold weather in Texas during the winter. The shock and horror of it!!!
The -8 degree F temperature recorded in Dallas on Feb 12 1899 is further proof that man is causing the weather to change. I bet it never got that cold before people were living in Texas.
You are quite confused. Individual weather events are rarely caused by man. Alarming trends of weather patterns like the one visible in this graph of US record-lows/record-highs data is very much man made:
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/images/temps_2.jpg
You'd have to be a bumbling idiot to deny the very clear trend visible in that graph ...
Wait a minute....I thought that AGW stood for Anthropogenic Global WARMING... are you now telling me that any pattern of severe weather, hot or cold, is caused by global warming? Wow, I don't remember seeing that in Algore's movie!
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
now go back and paint some more anti-abortion signs, you fucking moron... and yes, Jesus does fucking hate your rotten gutts.
You keep changing the subject - is the argument I raised inconvenient to you?
I made a really simple point, and let me repeat it, the following clear trend visible in this graph of record highs and record lows recorded in the US in the past 60 years:
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/images/temps_2.jpg
is a tell-tale signature of man-made global warming.
Only a bumbling idiot would deny that.