9 votes

US restaurant closings spur farmers to destroy food

5 comments

  1. [5]
    patience_limited
    Link
    From the article: I don't know what the proportion of restaurant dining room to home cooking is in other nations, but it's surprisingly high in the U.S., and a major source of food waste even in...

    From the article:

    Katie and Jim DiGangi, who run a dairy farm in Wisconsin, have spent the last several weeks dumping as much as 20,000 gallons of milk a day. In California, Jack Vessey, a lettuce and leafy green farmer, has destroyed 350 acres of his crop by ploughing his tractor through unharvested fields.

    The two farms are almost 2,000 miles apart but both have become examples of the damage done by the coronavirus outbreak to the complex supply chains that bring food from farms to tables in the US.

    As restaurants, hotels and schools have closed, farmers and ranchers who supplied them have lost customers. But redirecting their production to grocery stores has proved difficult because of the differing demands of commercial food operations and people cooking in their kitchens.

    I don't know what the proportion of restaurant dining room to home cooking is in other nations, but it's surprisingly high in the U.S., and a major source of food waste even in the best of times.

    Household meat and dairy consumption is likely to be reduced for at least the decade to come. Consumers are cost-cutting on shrinking household budgets, there's increased demand for non-perishable pantry staples, and there are more opportunities for vegetarian/vegan cooking skill development.

    6 votes
    1. [4]
      skybrian
      Link Parent
      I hope some changes will stick but I don't think there is any way of knowing to what extent they will be reversed once coronavirus isn't an issue anymore.

      I hope some changes will stick but I don't think there is any way of knowing to what extent they will be reversed once coronavirus isn't an issue anymore.

      3 votes
      1. cfabbro
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I honestly doubt meat consumption will ever fully bounce back to pre-coronavirus levels, since (at least here in Canada) even before the pandemic it was almost becoming a luxury good with the way...

        I honestly doubt meat consumption will ever fully bounce back to pre-coronavirus levels, since (at least here in Canada) even before the pandemic it was almost becoming a luxury good with the way the prices have been climbing for the last few years. And personally, I don't think that's a bad thing either, as the ethics of factory farming is an Elephant in the room, and the greenhouse gas emissions from that sector are also disproportionately high compared to other nutrient sources.

        3 votes
      2. [2]
        MimicSquid
        Link Parent
        Part of the challenge in reversing them is going to be a loss of institutional knowledge, physical infrastructure, and skilled workers. Who knows how much of that would need to be rebuilt, but it...

        Part of the challenge in reversing them is going to be a loss of institutional knowledge, physical infrastructure, and skilled workers. Who knows how much of that would need to be rebuilt, but it won't be instantaneous.

        3 votes
        1. skybrian
          Link Parent
          I agree with that, but on the other hand there is an argument that the old gets in the way of the new, and sometimes starting over isn't that bad. This is the "creative destruction" argument. It...

          I agree with that, but on the other hand there is an argument that the old gets in the way of the new, and sometimes starting over isn't that bad. This is the "creative destruction" argument. It depends on the business.

          Much as you may like your favorite restaurant, assuming people still want to eat out, it seems likely there will be new restaurants, and they probably won't be much worse? Niche markets are probably more vulnerable, though.

          On the other hand, California lost a lot of construction workers in 2008 and it's been a problem since then.

          2 votes