•Phase One was retail. •Phase two was distribution. •Phase three was the space between processing/manufacturing and distribution. •Phase four was raw material supply to manufacturing. •Phase five is consumer packaging capacity, and bulk storage inventories.

Most Americans were not aware food consumption in the U.S. was a 60/40 proposition. Approximately 60% of all food was consumed “outside the home” (or food away from home), and 40% of all food consumed was food “inside the home” (grocery shoppers).

Food ‘outside the home’ included: restaurants, fast-food locales, schools, corporate cafeterias, university lunchrooms, manufacturing cafeterias, hotels, food trucks, park and amusement food sellers and many more. Many of those venues are not thought about when people evaluate the overall U.S. food delivery system; however, this network was approximately 60 percent of all food consumption on a daily basis.

The ‘food away from home‘ sector has its own supply chain. Very few restaurants and venues (cited above) purchase food products from retail grocery outlets. As a result of the coronavirus mitigation effort the ‘food away from home’ sector has been reduced by 75% of daily food delivery operations. However, people still need to eat. That means retail food outlets, grocers, are seeing sales increases of 25 to 50 percent, depending on the area.

♦ Phase Five – The retail consumer supply chain for manufactured and processed food products includes bulk storage to compensate for seasonality. As Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently noted “there are over 800 commercial and public warehouses in the continental 48 states that store frozen products.”

Here is a snapshot of the food we had in storage at the end of February: over 302 million pounds of frozen butter; 1.36 billion pounds of frozen cheese; 925 million pounds of frozen chicken; over 1 billion pounds of frozen fruit; nearly 2.04 billion pounds of frozen vegetables; 491 million pounds of frozen beef; and nearly 662 million pounds of frozen pork.

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Sketchy Nikki Haley endorsed Sketchy Kelly Loeffler right before Loeffler’s insider trading schemes surfaced.  Given the fact that Haley and Loeffler are both ‘Big Club’ insiders; and considering the extremes Ms. Haley is going through to retain her mask; there is a dose of karmic comedy as we watch sketchy Ms. Loeffler slowly implode.

The latest polling shows Representative Doug Collins is now crushing the corrupt and sketchy Big-Club-appointed Senator Loeffler by 23 points.  Under increasing scrutiny for her insider Wall Street schemes; and in a futile attempt to save herself; Loeffler now promises to liquidate all her stock holdings:

WASHINGTON DC – Sen. Kelly Loeffler plans to liquidate all of her individual stock holdings after weeks of political firestorm over trades made amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Loeffler (R-Ga.), who was sworn into the Senate in January after her appointment to fill a vacant seat and is on the ballot in a special election this November, has been criticized heavily by Democrats and her Republican opponent in recent weeks for stock trades made in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Two topics of interest to average people appear in headlines.  The first is a report the food manufacturing industry might run out of PPE; the second is a remarkable shift by WalMart for shoppers in a new response to COVID-19.

First, there’s a hyped-up report about the food manufacturing industry possibly facing a shortage of gloves and masks as the nationwide PPE shortage continues. [SEE HERE]

However, there is nothing to be alarmed about in that report.

“I want to assure you that our food supply chain is sound,” Sonny Perdue, the secretary of agriculture, said on March 20.

That, however, could change if the people who make, package and deliver food lack personal protective equipment, or PPE, including face masks and gloves, according to the internal document shared with Yahoo News. (Link)

The three common PPE needs in food processing are: (1) hair restraints; (2) masks, and (3) gloves.  All food manufacturing and processing is regulated and inspected by the FDA and USDA.  The issues of mask and glove shortages are not critical within the industry.  Under the current National Emergency guidelines the USDA can modify regulations to keep the food supply-chain flowing without any health risk at all.

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Suffice to say 3M CEO Mike Roman will not be sending a Christmas card to the White House this year.  White House manufacturing advisor, and policy lead for the execution of the Defense Production Act, Peter Navarro, tells 3M to stop with the PC excuses and just do their damned job….  Perfect.

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Hopefully the advanced information CTH provided on the food supply-chain has helped to understand the issues, challenges and demands many are seeing.  Inside the food manufacturing industry the impacts of COVID-19 are stunning; crazy increases in business; and there are going to be interim shortages on popular products.

To understand the ongoing issues with empty shelves, and also prepare for future shortages on specific products (hint: buy extra pet food now), here’s some interesting background:

Champaign, Illinois – […] “We can’t make enough mac and cheese right now,” said Dilton “Dee” Gibbs, plant manager at the facility that makes half of the Kraft Macaroni & Cheese sold in the U.S., as well as A-1 steak sauce, mayonnaise and salad dressings.

The packaged food giant, along with many of its peers, has had to ramp up production amid an abrupt reversal in consumer trends. Shoppers who in recent years shunned processed foods in favor of fresher, healthier and more premium products are now loading up on shelf-stable standbys as shelter-in-place orders force vast swaths of the nation’s population to prepare for a long stretch of cooking at home.

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Comrades, the administrative state will take care of all your food needs.  There is no reason to be self-sufficient in the production of food products.  As a result Vermont has designated the selling of seeds as “non-essential” and blocked from purchase:

It is more than a little alarming to see state officials now beginning to drill down into products that stores will be permitted to sell, or not sell, within businesses that are permitted to remain open during the COVID-19 mitigation effort.

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Oh, this is almost too much winning.  Almost…  President Trump has appointed White House Manufacturing Advisor Peter Navarro to lead all U.S. coordination of the Defense Production Act.   Just like that… presto… Navarro becomes a bazillion times more powerful than CoC President Tom Donohue.   Delicious.

WASHNGTON – President Trump announced Friday he is appointing his trade adviser Peter Navarro to serve as his national Defense Production Act policy coordinator after using the act to force General Motors to begin making ventilators to treat coronavirus patients.

“He’s a tremendous guy and he will do a fantastic job,” the president said during a press briefing with his coronavirus taskforce at the White House. He said Navarro will serve as the national Defense Production Act coordinator for the federal government. (link)

Peter Navarro has been a long-term China hawk warning about the risk of U.S. multinationals doing critical supply-chain manufacturing overseas.  Navarro, working closely with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, has been the tip of the spear in the execution of America First policy and jobs.

This appointment, and these additional responsibilities, is a recognition for his efforts.

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• Phase One was retail. • Phase two was distribution. • Phase three was the space between manufacturing and distribution. • Phase four is raw material supply to manufacturing. U.S. food processing, and manufacturing is now operating at full capacity.

By now the majority of protein manufacturing has caught up. Beef and pork should be solid at your local market; however, chicken, while available, will lag to full replenishment capacity in the protein sector. The reason is: “chicken” is an ingredient component in many shelf stable items (soup etc.), that are still short as the manufacturing sector runs at capacity.

We enter a phase where grain commodities are now arriving at manufacturing.

♦ Between the Appalachian mountain range and the Colorado mountain range there is a massive amount of grain, meal, and derivative (farming) product generated. Thin component inventories, now exhausted at processing, are the cause of the current manufacturing supply chain stress… This lag will take a little longer.

There are train-loads of grain products heading both East and West daily; but there is a process of background prioritization taking place within the grain (total), flour, meal, rice and dried beans sector. The downstream ingredient system has a long-term and short-term priority schedule.

Example: total flour is prioritized to industrial bakeries for the production of bread. Nationally retail or consumer flour shortages are caused by prioritization in this part of the supply-chain.

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Thank you Greg Abbott.  This is the first smart move by a state leader recognizing the realities of the system at hand.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed a waiver allowing restaurants to sell their bulk food directly to retail customers.

Amid all of the reactionary decisions by elected officials, this is a smart, and temporary move that can take pressure off the retail supply chain.  Hopefully others will follow.

Leadership is often about recognizing the unique landscape and taking ‘outside the box’ action in response to current conditions.  Greg Abbott recognizes there are two distinctly different supply-chains, and this modification can open one distribution valve.

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To understand the purpose and specific need of the latest Executive Order CTH can share a familiar analogy to help better conceptualize the issues.

There are several supply chains that are being affected by the coronavirus mitigation effort; two specific sectors involve healthcare products and food distribution. Today’s executive order targets both.

As a network of U.S. manufacturing continues to increase the production of healthcare products, masks, shields, ventilators and medicines; any hoarding or pricing opportunism around those items is obviously a matter of great interest for overall public health.

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