I got a call today from a friend that let me know that there were rice rations in the US starting up. I checked around and so far it looks like Sam’s Warehouse and other warehouse clubs are starting to limit the number of bags that can be purchased at one time. Sam’s is currently setting a limit of 4 bags per customer. While there is a rice shortage worldwide, the US isn’t feeling it as bad. According to some sources, most of the price crunch is from restaurants hording food in anticipation of higher prices.
This is such a big deal that even the Daily Show picked up on the story. Right before the Colin Firth penis photo story, Aasif and Rob compared the rice shortage between Africa and the local Costco. While it was a satire on American leisure, it was interesting that they picked up this story. It seems that The Colbert Report is also going to run a segment about the food shortage! I’ll update this article with what they had to say.
Update: The Colbert Report covered the rice ration on today’s show. Stephen joked about not being able to make his kiddy pool paella and set out “The Rice Stuff” interns to hit all the warehouse stores to get him rice.
So, it real world terms, what does this mean? Well, I went out to see what the rice situation was locally. I first went to Costco and they were completely sold out of bulk long grain white rice. I went to a local Asian market, Saigon Taipei Marketplace to see how they were affected. They were completely stocked and they even had some rice on sale for 17.99 for a 25 lb bag! Still more than it was a couple months ago, but better than the 20 bucks I paid earlier this month.
So there you go. A global, national and local look on the rice shortage. Happy eating and good luck!
Continuing coverage from our last rice post:
http://www.netfoodie.com/2008/04/10/why-is-rice-so-damn-expensive/
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