May, 2008

I went to Costco to assess how quickly they would run out of food if people quickly started to stock their pantries. I spoke to the supervisor and assessed 17 different items. Most of them were food but I also looked at rechargeable batteries.

Here is what I found for pasta.

Garofalo pasta in 6x500g packs are packaged 8 to a carton and sell for $7.29 a pack.

A skid has 6 cartons and is 3 layers high, which means there are 18 cartons.

A skid of pasta thus holds:

18 x 8 = 144 packs (of 6x500g)

Assuming that Costco rations pasta like they are currently doing for rice, some number of families less than 144 will empty the skid.

If the limit is 2 packs per person, the skid can provide enough pasta for 72 families. Given the traffic Costco has, this could be accomplished within hours of opening.

The supervisor said that they keep "one skid, sometimes a bit more, on the steel." By "steel," he was referring to the shelving above the ground floor. They do not have stock elsewhere in the warehouse; all their stock is on that shelving. I asked why there isn't rice other than Uncle Ben's (normally they have Basmati or Sushi rice), and his response was that they can't keep it in stock. It sells out the same day they put it out.

Our disaster prep officials tell me the Bay Area has approximately 3 1/2 days of food in it.

We are heading for a food squeeze, according to the United Nations.

Bottom line: Get into the habit now of having a few months' supply of food in the pantry. 

Update from April 29, 2009

The World Health Organization has just increased the pandemic alert level to 5, just one down from 6. I have no idea which way this will go: no one does. But anything I buy now and don't eat goes straight into my disaster kit (you'll recall I live in an earthquake zone).

I just returned from Costco after stocking up on food, Vitamin C, latex gloves, Theraflu, pain relievers and Kleenex. Right now my Costco is well stocked all the items except for latex gloves (about a quarter skid left) and hand sanitizer, which is sold out. There was three-quarters of a skid of three kinds of rice and pinto beans, plus plenty of other canned goods.

Although I seemed to be the only one buying the items I was, this stock may not last for long as knowledge starts to spread that stocking one's pantry is a good idea at this point — especially while the products are available.