Shortage du jour

Boose

Boose

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
214
Location
New Hampshire
The U.S. has had shortages in toilet paper, N95 masks, hand sanitizer, garden gnomes, bucatini pasta, and gasoline... What's the weirdest shortage you've heard of this year?

While in Vegas for a post-vaccination vacation, I saw the attached sign at a Taiwanese tea cafe warning of restricted boba (tapioca pearl) supplies.

And recently DH tried to procure oven cleaner for my infrequent use. Couldn't get any of the good caustic stuff that cleans with one application - settled for the gentle version that requires 3 applications and a green scrub pad. Turns out there is a shortage of household cleaners. DH recalled that we couldn't get Walmart brand bathroom cleaner for a couple of months last year. :blink:
 

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My guess is that the US is leading the world in recovering from Covid due to the vaccines, and consumption is quickly coming back. However, the rest of the world where the goods that we consume are made is still busy with fighting the virus. Hence, the shortage of a lot of goods which we as the consumers often take for granted, but do not know of the origin.

Take the tapioca mentioned in the OP. It is made from a starch from cassava root. Cassava is grown in South America, Asia, and Africa. Quite a few of the countries in these continents are still suffering from Covid. Tapioca is grown as a staple food in these places, and perhaps they are too busy with other things to make the pearls to export.
 
I have some rumblings of plastic container shortages as well as shipping pallets (usually made of wood). COVID keeps on giving!
 
Chlorine tablets for pools. This morning a friend said he want to buy a bucket of them and the price was $5 more than usual.
 
NW-Bound said:
My guess is that the US is leading the world in recovering from Covid due to the vaccines, and consumption is quickly coming back. However, the rest of the world where the goods that we consume are made is still busy with fighting the virus. Hence, the shortage of a lot of goods which we as the consumers often take for granted, but do not know of the origin.

Take the tapioca mentioned in the OP. It is made from a starch from cassava root. Cassava is grown in South America, Asia, and Africa. Quite a few of the countries in these continents are still suffering from Covid. Tapioca is grown as a staple food in these places, and perhaps they are too busy with other things to make the pearls to export.
Click to expand...

I read this article on Eater a couple of weeks ago that rounds up a bunch of reasons for the boba shortage: https://la.eater.com/2021/4/30/2241...n-logistics-los-angeles-california-east-coast

They say the Cassava used for boba is grown in Thailand. Supply issues have been caused by:
- drought in Taiwan affecting manufacturing
- shipping delays to the eastern U.S. due to blockage of the Suez Canal
- delays in unloading ships at the Port of Los Angeles due to Covid-19 protocols and shortages of dockworkers
- the Texas ice storm disrupting rail traffic
- rail delays in the eastern U.S.

Apparently the price of a case of Boba has increased from $4 to $13 during the course of the pandemic, primarily driven by the increases in shipping costs. I don't even like Boba (tasteless gummy lumps in my drink, no thank you!) but it's interesting to see how interconnected everything is.
 
Handyman installing backsplash ran out of bone-colored caulk, which is a pretty common color. Home Depot has it on back-order and it didn’t come yesterday when it was supposed to - so we wait.

He also mentioned they’re charging the same amount for a 5-gallon tub of the stuff that he paid for a 25-pound bag of mix the last time he bought it.
 
aja8888 said:
Chlorine tablets for pools. This morning a friend said he want to buy a bucket of them and the price was $5 more than usual.
Click to expand...

I am surprised it was "only" $5. The news of the "impending" shortage of chlorine has certainly not helped the situation. I saw our neighbor unloading several 5 gallon buckets of tabs a couple of weeks ago. Our local Atwood's (and WM) has been out of liquid chlorine (and related products) for a while.
 
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ExFlyBoy5 said:
I am surprised it was "only" $5. The news of the "impending" shortage of chlorine has certainly not helped the situation. I saw our neighbor unloading several 5 gallon buckets of tabs a couple of weeks ago. Our local Atwood's (and WM) has been out of liquid chlorine (and related products) for a while, now.
Click to expand...

My friend didn't mention the bucket size he bought. But when we had a pool (decades ago), I recall buying them in 5 gallon sized buckets.
 
Speaking of chlorine tablets, while Costco may be out of the 40-lb pails at $88, a nearby pool supply store has a stack of their 35-lb pails at $125. :)
 
In the past 2 days the following items at lowes have become unavailable locally or with shipping: the almond colored toilet i wanted. And a specific combo door deadbolt by schlage.
 
Ketchup packets. Some restaurants in my area are serving the traditional bottles at the table, but the ones serving packets hand them out like it's gold. One packet for my fries? I don't think so. The fries are just flavoring for my ketchup consumption.
 
Interestingly, Sherwin Williams was completely out of their "color to go" paint color samples company wide a month or so ago with no idea when they'd get more in. Checking online today, it's still unavailable. They sent me to Lowe's which turned out well as I hadn't realized that Lowe's offered a more reasonable size of SW test paint.
 
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The freeze in Texas shut down a lot of chemical plants. The company I work at right now almost ran out of caustic because of it. That's probably the chlorine shortage cause and I expect a lot of plastic supply is behind. I think Dow has some huge plastics plants down that way.
 
None to mention.

Still buying wood, costs more.
 
Boose said:
The U.S. has had shortages in toilet paper, N95 masks, hand sanitizer, garden gnomes, bucatini pasta, and gasoline... What's the weirdest shortage you've heard of this year?
Click to expand...

While not "this" year, flour and yeast were both difficult to come by for quite a few months. I guess everyone started baking during the pandemic. Ironically, supplies finally caught up with demand and now yeast is abundant at the grocery store. There must be 6-8 different varieties now compared to 2-3 before COVID.
 
mountainsoft said:
While not "this" year, flour and yeast were both difficult to come by for quite a few months. I guess everyone started baking during the pandemic. Ironically, supplies finally caught up with demand and now yeast is abundant at the grocery store. There must be 6-8 different varieties now compared to 2-3 before COVID.
Click to expand...

Now I am still baking bread, and may never go back to buying!
 
Not a shortage but during the summer Olympics in Brazil, there were cases and cases of condoms delivered to the Olympic village where the athletes were staying.
 
I do not know if this is due to a shortage, but the Costco jar of M&M's peanuts that was 9.99 in my local Costco as recently as late January has jumped to $12.99. IT'S AN OUTRAGE, I TELL YOU! :)
 
Chuckanut said:
+1

It's so easy to make no-knead bread, and it tastes so much better.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread
Click to expand...

+ another 1. I started doing sourdough before last year so my only issue was finding flour, although I never actually ran out. I bought some store bought bread for the first time in many months just yesterday and DW remarked how bad it seemed.

I seem to recall that at least part of the reason for the yeast shortage was the lack of sachets for packaging.
 
Mulch, and drivers to deliver it.

Went to Home Depot's web site to order delivery of bagged mulch, as I do each year. All nearby HD's said "Delivery unavailable."
Lowes had $79.00 delivery, but a limit of 15 bags of mulch.

Also, peat moss (very important to Florida gardens and lawns) has been hard to find all year. Whenever the stores get it, somebody shows up and buys the whole lot. So bad, in fact, that I reserved/paid for a couple bales online. Two days later we went to the store, only to find the peat moss had been sold to someone else and they had none left. No recourse, I was told. Just an error....
 
Plumbers. Tried for days to get a plumber to even return our call to replace leaking (into apartment below) toilet. "Leave a message" was all we got until someone finally picked up and had mercy on us with a same-afternoon visit. I wrote their number on the wall! YMMV
 
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