[mnw21cam]

In the UK, last year we had a terrible shortage of bread flour in the supermarkets.

Actually, what we had was a sudden reduction in the amount of flour being used by bakeries, and an increase in the amount of flour being used at home. There wasn't a shortage of flour - there was a shortage of small bags to put it in for selling at a supermarket. The industry was all set up for selling a decent proportion of flour in really large bags.

Likewise, for simple goods like vegetables, dairy, and beer, some suppliers have suddenly had their customers disappear, because they normally sold to restaurants, pubs, and caterers, where other suppliers have not been able to keep up with demand, because they sold to supermarkets. The obvious solution is for the suppliers who previously sold to caterers to sell to supermarkets instead, but it takes a while for these contracts and logistics to be sorted out.

[uxp100]

Yes, similar in the US. First all flour was sold out, then as it became available again it was bulk bins first, and then brands that sold in 1 and 5 pound bags last.

Interestingly (well kinda) the similar yeast shortage is still not back to normal. The shortage was partly related to packaging and the yeast at my grocer is still in the post COVID foil packaging and not in the packages it was before. (Luckily I had yeast in the freezer)

[mnw21cam]

We had a load of news stories on TV about dairies and brewers pouring their milk/beer down the drain, and people spluttering about how they couldn't find any beer or milk on the supermarket shelves. That isn't a supply/demand problem, that's a logistics problem.

(Also - seriously, you have 1 pound bags of flour over there? Most bags here are 1.5kg (3.3 pounds), with some specialist flours in 1kg (2.2 pounds) bags. 1 pound seems a little small.)

[uxp100]

The "normal" flour is in 5lb bags. I went and looked, and the specialty stuff I had is indeed in a 1 kg, not 1lb, bag.

[exhilaration]

We had flour shortages in the US as well. I wonder if that was the case across the Western world.