Still no shortage
Filed Under (Fearmongering) by Don C on 24-04-2008
This seems prudent:
Top retailer Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club unit said Wednesday it is limiting the amount of rice individual shoppers could buy at one time, as rice prices hit new records around the world. Sam’s Club said it had temporarily placed limits of four 20-pound (nine-kilogram) bags a person for jasmine, basmati, and other long-grain white rice types.
“We currently have plenty of rice for Sam’s Club Members,” the company said in a statement.
“However, like our competitors, we’re just taking the precautionary step of limiting sales of the very large 20 pound bags” of imported white rice, it said.
Sam’s Club, a members-only bulk retailer chain owned by Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said smaller-sized bags of rice were not affected by the restrictions; nor did they extend to Wal-Mart stores
Emphasis added. There was no mention of a shortage; Wal-Mart seems to be taking precautionary steps to prevent recent media hype and Costco’s supply chain problems from creating a run on the entire rice market, if it’s not already too late.
If a Chinese Food restaurant wants to hedge against rising rice prices, it should buy a commodities contract. Don’t go buy a year’s worth of rice at Wal-Mart. Greed leads to the dark side.
Here’s an idea. All the Chinese/Asian food restaurants who consume several tons of rice each year start a new marketing campaign. It goes something like this:
“You come eat you bring smar bag rice. You bring smar bag rice; you get smar discount. You bring no smar bag rice; you pay full expensive rice price.”
A very efficient way to distribute goods to those who ultimately consume them.
