I warned you about the beef.
Beef prices are up 30%, even though I haven't noticed any "shortage". Luckily I stocked up on NY Strips @ $6.99 before the price rise.
Original Post
If you've been to the supermarket, and of course you have, you notice rolling shortages of various items. Sometimes they don't have eggs. Sometimes they're out of certain brands that they usually have; the other day I was buying canned tomatoes and they only had 1 brand in stock. It's becoming the new norm.
The next big shortage is beef; as many beef processing plants are closing because too many of their workers are sick. Apparently people who work in meat packing plants aren't wealthy and they tend to live with lots of other people, so they tend to get sick in clusters. I've been buying up steaks, just in case. Plus they've been dumping very high quality meat into supermarkets lately. Today I picked up a T-Bone and 4 beautifully marbled strip steaks at Winn-Dixie; all on Sale. $6.99 for near-prime strips.
I'm not sure there's actually going to be a beef shortage; there are some very strange dynamics are play. First, restaurants aren't buying steaks. Nobody does a $45 strip steak takeout unless they don't even have a kitchen, and the modern generation are not big steak eaters anyway. I've seen more high quality beef in supermarkets the past month than I can ever remember.
Also, a lot of people are out of work and living more frugally, so they're not buying T-bones, even when they're on sale. But, if you have a freezer and a foodsaver, why not stock up while the sales are still running? The price may be going up quite a lot in the next 2 weeks.
