Winter Is Coming—How To Deal With The Food Crisis In A World Without Walmart

Friday, December 8, 2017
By Paul Martin

SurvivalDan101.com
12/8/2017

ood production is one of the most essential concerns of any society. Without direct availability and ease of consumption, without the consistent flow of agricultural goods, every nation existing today (except the most primitive) would immediately find its infrastructure crumbling and its people in a furious panic. It’s strange to me, then, that long-term independent food planning is the one concern that many Americans seem to take most for granted. Firearms and ammo, camping gear and bug-out-bags, MRE’s, beans, and rice; these are the easiest part of your survival foundation. The hard part is not storage of goods, but devising a solid and practical plan for sustainability in the long term. This starts with the capacity to support your own agriculture regardless of how long the grid is down, even if it is down indefinitely.

Understandably, there will be some people who do not have enough land to implement many of these strategies. They should still know the fundamentals and be ready to apply them at a retreat location or within a community should the opportunity arise.

With that success in mind, let’s dive into the most important aspects of food survival in a country where infrastructure has ceased to function…

Emaciated Grocery Chains

Back in 2010, I witnessed perhaps the most incredible snow storm I have ever seen in my life. A low-pressure system punished the Northeast with downpour after downpour, stopping most road travel and cutting power to millions for at least a week. Being that the average family has only a week’s worth of food or less in their pantry, you can imagine the chaos that unfolded. Those grocery stores with backup power were flooded with customers buying armloads of batteries, water, ice chests, and, of course, foods that don’t require refrigeration. Now, what I want you to imagine, is what would have happened if no grocery stores had been open that week. What would have happened if they had never reopened? How many people would have been in the very real position of starving to death? From what I observed that winter…far too many…

The problem of storage and backstock is widespread in the U.S. and the culprit is actually one which we have been trained to admire; efficiency. It is because of the over-application of efficiency in grocery models and in the freight sector that most outlets carry little to no backstock in goods. Instead, they order goods as quickly as they sell out, refilling shelves on a product by product basis. This means that in most grocers, what you see on the shelf, is all that they have. The speed of trucking deliveries makes this business model possible, but its operation suffers from a seriously fatal flaw…

Grocery stores may seem like a bounty of goods at first glance, but if freight shipments shut down, or even slowed, those aisles would empty within the span of a few days. Many households in America operate on the same faulty “efficiency”. They rely on the weekly trip to the grocer to maintain the pantry while also attempting to save money by reducing backstock. It’s a frayed rope holding up too much weight, a completely inflexible system that cannot withstand any deviation from the set routine. One unexpected disaster could render the entire food and agriculture distribution network immobile.

Many grocery chains also function on a line of credit from banks while operating at a loss. Profits are poured directly into the liabilities the companies incur from loans and then more money is borrowed to continue ordering goods. Some stores in the chain (flagship stores) usually bring in enough money to cover the red ink of the other branches, however, what if banks were to cut off credit completely to a grocery chain? Or maybe ALL grocery chains? The cycle of debt, to sales, to profit, to debt, becomes disrupted. Any stores that rely solely on credit to stay open for business would immediately lose the ability to bring in new stock. Again, we are faced with empty shelves in less than a week.

The Rest…HERE

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