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Sam’s Club rationing rice due to global shortage
April 23rd, 2008, 10:02 am · 11 Comments · posted by Nancy Luna, Staff Writer and Blogger
Wal-Mart’s warehouse division, Sam’s Club, said Wednesday that it is limiting sales of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rices because of global shortages.
Customers will only be allowed to buy “four bags per member visit,” Wal-Mart spokesw
oman Kristy Reed said in a statement.
“This is effective immediately in all of our U.S. clubs, where quantity restrictions are allowed by law,” she added.
The company, the nation’s No. 2 warehouse club, said it is working with suppliers to address the shortage to ensure shelves remained stocked. Sam’s Club is not restricting purchases of flour or oil. Orange County is home to five Sam’s Club in Irvine, Fountain Valley, Stanton, La Habra and Fullerton.
The decision comes a day after Costco said some of its stores were seeing unusual demand for certain items like rice and flour due to worries over global food shortages. Much of that demand was coming from the Bay Area, said Costco CEO James Sinegal.
Mark Maushund, vice president of operations for Costco warehouses in and Orange and Los Angeles counties, said he’s seen some customers “come in to buy large quantities” of rice because of slightly tight supplies.
“But, we’re not seeing people come in and want a truckload of rice,” he added.
Costco’s Sinegal said there’s no plans to limit the sale of rice to customers unless someone comes in and asks for an unusual amount of rice or flour. However, the New York Sun said some Costcos in Northern California were limiting rice sales. (Update 2:30 p.m. I stopped by the Costco in Laguna Niguel this afternoon, and the store had plenty of bagged rice. No hoarding, or panic. )
Rice prices in the United States and around the world have more than doubled in the last year, and U.S. rice futures rose to a fresh all-time high Wednesday on worries about supply shortages, according to Reuters report on Wednesday.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I shopped at Costco on Crown valley in Laguna Niguel yesterday around 5pm and was told I could only buy 1 - 20 lb. sack of Basmati rice. (I had 2 sacks.) When I protested the checker said I could buy my 2 sacks because I had an Executive Membership. A couple at the next check-out counter had 3 sacks of the same product, and a Costco employee took 2 sacks away from them for re-stocking. Let the chaos begin!
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Interesting, Mike. I was at the same one, and I didn’t see any signs that warned people of any rationing.
Of course, I didn’t try and buy any rice, like you….Thanks for letting me know.
Nancy
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I just got back from Vons, and there was plenty of rice of all types and sizes. In fact, they’ve got some bags of white rice and Rice-A-Roni on Vons Club this week for half off. I don’t even eat rice too often, but these silly news stories today made me think to go look at the rice aisle at Vons.
And since Rice-A-Roni was only one dollar per box with Vons Club, I bought three boxes just for fun and then whistled the “San Francisco Treat” jingle all the way to the checkout.
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
FYI, for rice fans, this was at the Vons in Orange on Tustin Avenue.
“Rice-A-Roni, the San Fracisco treat! Ding, ding!”
(Waiting for a food snob to show up and tell me how white bread and Americanized that Rice-A-Roni is, and how I’m not cool enough to know any better. I don’t care, I just like to sing the jingle!)
April 24th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
With food prices going up and up I’m glad that I don’t have to pay full price for my prescriptions any more. I found a prescription discount card at http://www.rxdrugcard.com. Low membership fee. Drug prices posted.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Is this for real? This is just another excuse for the farmers to get richer by raising the prices and fooling the public. I think a rice shortage is a joke —-raise the price and stop the excuses
April 24th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
My parents couldn’t stop talking about it weeks ago. They buy the 50 lb bags of jasmine rice at the supermarkets in Little Saigon — they couldn’t get over that prices had nearly doubled, from $25 to $42. My parents think it’s all a conspiracy, they’re not worried at all. They think it’s just the farmers/distributors trying to jack up the prices and rip consumers off. My mom refuses to buy jasmine rice at those prices — she said she’ll eat Calrose rice, the same kind that the Japanese and Koreans eat.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Tony:
Exactly! It’s all the growers fault:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/apr2008/db20080424_496359.htm
Troy,
A box of Rice-A-Roni (okay, I’ve been outed!) weighs in at 5 oz. 2 1/2 oz of it is the flavor packet. So you’re getting 2.5 oz of rice for a dollar on special. That works out to $6.40 a pound. By my aricle cite, jasmine rice (not the highest grade) is currently $1,125 a ton now (it was $559) or $0.56 a pound. If I was making 80% gross margins I’d be able to toss down a buck a box too.
So, Tony, who’s the real villian? The grower or Golden Gate Foods?
April 25th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
While I know that Japan and Singapore are having trouble getting enough rice, I’m dubious of any shortage in the eastern hemisphere as Mexico seems to supply quite a bit to the U.S.A.
The owner of a House of Spices Indian grocery told me that he doesn’t have trouble getting rice, it’s just that he doesn’t make profit from it now because he doesn’t feel he can charge enough to maintain the profit. The Korean grocery where I normally buy my Nishiki brand rice doesn’t seem to have raised prices yet, though I didn’t look at the large bags.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
bou,
California is a huge exporter of rice with the potential to be even bigger.
http://www.calrice.org/
We live in a wealthy land of plenty. There will be no food shortages here. However, other countries won’t be so lucky.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Today(April28) there was absolutely no rice in the COSTCO Gig Harbor,WA store. The racks and shelves were empty. There were several pallets of Minute Rice in a box but zero rice available in bulk.