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Letter Re: Food Shortages at COSTCO and Sam's Club Stores
James,
I visited COSTCO store in
Woodinville, Washington Saturday morning, right at the store's opening time.
I had my doubts about the reality of the shortages, and needed
to
shop, anyway, so I thought I'd check it out for myself. They had eight big
warehouse guys escorting two pallets of rice out to the showroom floor just
about the time I arrived. Six of the eight then stayed with the rice, handing
it out to customers as needed. Both pallets were completely sold out by the
time I left the store about 45 minutes later.
I talked with two of the warehouse guys independent of each other, playing
dumb and asking what was going on. Both said they were receiving normal shipments,
just as they always had, but that customers were spooked and buying a lot more
than normal. Both told me they expected their next rice shipment on Tuesday.
One of them also told me (then showed me) that they were completely out of "general
purpose" flour, and only had specialized bread-making flour in stock.
Both swore up and down (and I have no reason to think they were being less
than
honest) that there were no shortages, just a run on things
that they blamed on the media. There was enough cooking oil to fill a swimming
pool, no shortages there. - Jeff F.
