are we having a sugar shortage or something?

[ratcreature]

Seriously, neither of the two supermarkets nearest to me had any plain white sugar when I tried to buy some this week. Last year before they raised the sugar price there were signs in the supermarkets that they wouldn't sell more than five kilo to a customer, because some people were apparently hoarding sugar, either in anticipation of a price increase or to resell it in neighboring countries where sugar prices were already higher, but at least it was still available. And of course now it's been selling at the higher price of 85¢/kg for some time. When it's available, that is, which apparently it is not right now as far as my nearest supermarkets are concerned. I ought to have hoarded some too. (Or I guess I could walk around to other supermarkets further away, looking for a place that has sugar, but I'm lazy.) >:(

It's a good thing I didn't throw out the sugar that got a little wet and clumped in its package when I accidentally spilled water on it some weeks ago, but rather dried it out, so at least I still have some clumpy sugar, even if I almost used up the rest.

Comments

[nrrrdy-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Are you in the states?

[ratcreature]

No, in Germany.

[nrrrdy-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Whenever I hear "hoarding" I automatically think America.

[ratcreature]

Obviously the people who were stockpiling sugar were onto something, considering that I can't seem to find any in my stores this week. If I was uncharitable I would blame the highly regulated EU sugar market with all its quotas and what not, but I'm actually not sure whether there is some widespread supply-demand problem like in last year when the EU had to release non-quota sugar onto the market and eased the import quotas too to meet demand, or whether it's just one of my local supermarkets having been inept with their orders, which then caused sugar to be out in the next nearest one too. I mean, unlike last year I haven't seen any news articles about sugar being in short supply, so that would indicate a more local problem, and anyway, usually the sugar issues only affect industry needing huge amounts, not supermarket sugar.

I don't think hoarding is an American thing. My father used to buy large amounts of soap, saying that his mother did okay when trading it on the black market in WWI and WWII, because the rationing of all kinds of fats meant all the soap available was crappy or something, and you could store soap easily without it going bad or anything like that. And it apparently did okay to keep its value for trade in the hyperinflation of the 1920s too. So he was of the opinion that having a whole shelf stacked with large amounts of soap would do well for crisis preparation compared to say keeping precious metals, because in his experience people never got good worth for their gold or silver once they needed to trade it for food and other essential items in a crisis, whereas stockpiling good quality soap during non-crisis times was a relatively small investment, but it would be sure to become scarce once an economy starts to seriously break down.

[nrrrdy-grrrl.livejournal.com]

We had a load of hoarding here before 2000 because seperatists were freaking out about Y2K. They weren't interest selling anything, just stocking their bunkers and fortresses out in the wilderness and guarding it with an arsenal of guns.

[ratcreature]

Self-sufficient bunkers are a whole different level of dedication to worst case scenarios (and of course unlike the soap shelf for potential barter it doesn't really work if you're a city dweller). Also it's a lot more work. I mean, with food stuffs you have to replace things all the time, and then how long do you plan that to last? Because if things reach the zombie apocalypse level of breakdown where things deteriorate so much that you can only make it with guns and bunkers, what is the point really?

[nrrrdy-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

It was all just part of the fin de siecle hysteria that went on over here.