Forget cobalt, buy vanilla bean futures and SELL SELL SELL on Blueberries

[MillCreek]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/06/16/527576487/our-love-of-all-natural-is-causing-a-vanilla-shortage?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

Pretty much the only liquid vanilla we buy any more is the Kirkland Signature 16 ounce bottle of extract.  Among the best we have ever used and you cannot beat the price.

[Ben]

So TP and vanilla extract for the apocalypse? 

I also buy the Costco stuff. Ridiculously good bargain.

[BobR]

I have a subscription to Cook's Illustrated, one of the best (IMO) cooking rags out there. They did a test a few years ago on vanilla extracts and determined that instead of buying the upscale vanilla the best one to buy according to taste, usability, etc. was plain old McCormick Vanilla Extract.

After reading that I quit using all of the fancy ones and have pretty much stuck to McCormick. The only time I will use something else is when I want the little flecks of vanilla bean guts to be in the final product (i.e. creme brulee) and then I have a jar of vanilla bean paste from Williams-Sonoma.


bob

[K Frame]

"Newman has switched suppliers to find a cheaper product.

"It's not certified organic. It's not fair-trade," he says. "There's a guilt I have over that, because we're talking about something that's all hand labor, and if these people aren't being treated fairly, it's really sad.""

Really? He's guilty, but he's still switching anyway?

Why?

More expensive means more money to the downtrodden little guys, right?

Isn't that what these idiots believe?

*expletive deleted*ing idiot...

[T.O.M.]

Seems to me like every once in a while, someone will start talking about a shortage of some kind of food.  I can recall coffee, chocolate, and bacon in the last couple of years.  But I haven't seen any empty shelves at the grocery stores around here... 

[Ben]

Seems to me like every once in a while, someone will start talking about a shortage of some kind of food.  I can recall coffee, chocolate, and bacon in the last couple of years.  But I haven't seen any empty shelves at the grocery stores around here... 

Yeah, now that you mention it, it seems there has been an uptick in that over the last few years. Whiskey too. Seems like some industries have hired a clandestine marketing genius. 

[cordex]

Seems to me like every once in a while, someone will start talking about a shortage of some kind of food.  I can recall coffee, chocolate, and bacon in the last couple of years.  But I haven't seen any empty shelves at the grocery stores around here... 

Have we reached peak alarmist journalism?!?

The continued availability of products which at first seem to be becoming scarce says a huge amount about the flexibility and adaptability that competitive markets provide.

[makattak]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fear-of-losing-blueberry-growers-as-prices-drop-crop-soars/2017/06/11/cc48a304-4e9d-11e7-b74e-0d2785d3083d_story.html?utm_term=.ec86c2f18ad0

One of the reasons for the drop in prices and profits is a multi-year boom in harvest that has led to surplus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture stepped in last year and allotted up to $13 million to buy surplus Maine blueberries and help stabilize prices. But excess supply remains.

Huh, imagine that. Government pays for all the surplus, but excess supply remanins. "We're incarcerating more people than ever before, but crime is down!!" Yeah, it's a mystery, all right.

Thanks again, WaPo journalists [spit] in proving your absolute inability to grasp anything outside of your warped view.

[K Frame]

Well, if I put vanilla extract on my blueberries, it should even prices out across the board, right?

But adding sugar is the wildcard...

[K Frame]

Actually, this may well be the next food to buy...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnvGWHbPtZ0

[BobR]

Well the .gov could build huge climate controlled underground storage for the blueberries and make shriveled up blueberries from them and then give them back so that blueberry "raisins" could become the next hipster food.


bob

[MillCreek]

^^^ Damn, Bob, add in the cranberries and you will have berry farmers in the NE, Midwest and PNW voting for you.

[BobR]

^^^^^

I missed out on the big cheese buy and give away program that has been flourishing for years so maybe I can get in on the berry program. :)

bob

[Angel Eyes]

Yeah, now that you mention it, it seems there has been an uptick in that over the last few years. Whiskey too. Seems like some industries have hired a clandestine marketing genius. 

I blame Justified for the whiskey shortage.

[RevDisk]

Seems to me like every once in a while, someone will start talking about a shortage of some kind of food.  I can recall coffee, chocolate, and bacon in the last couple of years.  But I haven't seen any empty shelves at the grocery stores around here... 

Bunch of reasons. Just in time supply chains mean you're much much more likely to have unscheduled production interruptions. Distribution can be tricky. People also make regional or short term shortages into apocalyptic things because eggs went up a dollar for a couple weeks or supermarkets only stocked sixty kinds of chocolate instead of eighty. With the incredibly amazing diversity in our supermarkets, substantial shortages of X probably aren't noticeable to virtually anyone that isn't extremely brand loyal. There's just so many different suppliers.

[Scout26]

Duplicates mergenated.


I'm going long on Mulberries and Nocino !!!

[Regolith]

I have a subscription to Cook's Illustrated, one of the best (IMO) cooking rags out there. They did a test a few years ago on vanilla extracts and determined that instead of buying the upscale vanilla the best one to buy according to taste, usability, etc. was plain old McCormick Vanilla Extract.

After reading that I quit using all of the fancy ones and have pretty much stuck to McCormick. The only time I will use something else is when I want the little flecks of vanilla bean guts to be in the final product (i.e. creme brulee) and then I have a jar of vanilla bean paste from Williams-Sonoma.

bob

I think I read that same article online. IIRC, they also said that natural works best in non-baked foods, as heat degrades the taste very easily, and that artificial is best for baked because it doesn't degrade.

I've been using Watkins Baking Vanilla for a long time. It's a mixture of natural and artificial vanilla, and seems to work well for everything.

[makattak]

Duplicates mergenated.


I'm going long on Mulberries and Nocino !!!

Errr... they weren't duplicates

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