OT: What foods are we going to run out of with planes grounded?

[Tim Downie]

Given the amount of produce flown around the world the grounding of aircrafts has ramifications way beyond ruined holidays.

What are we likely to see disappear from supermarket shelves first?

Tim

[John]

Are we going to have to cope with a few missing goods?

We should protest to Iceland. They should have sprayed hoses onto the stuff coming from the volcano.

[Tim Downie]

Lets just hope it's "a few". Do you have any idea how much food is imported by plane?

Tim

[Tim Watts]

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:13:58 +0100, "Tim Downie" wibbled:

Good question, especially if it continues erupting for any length of time like months. Funky out of season fruit n veg obviously...

I wonder how much frozen produce comes by ship rather than air?

Good for the sheep farmers here (bye bye NZ lamb)

[Roger]

Peruvian asparagus for a start - lucky that the UK season is just getting going!

I don't think it will affect us that much. Hours of research queuing up to get out of ferry ports suggests that all fresh food consumed in the UK arrives in huge, slow, Spanish lorries.

Roger.

[Invisible Man]

Kenyan runner beans

[Falco]

Probably only the stuff that is flown from the African/Asian continents - and no-way will that affect the basic food chain, as that stuff is moved by the ship/lorry load and is to low down to be affected by volcanic ash at

5000 to 35000 feet of the ground!

Don't tell me that you are a 'speculator' trying to make a 'fast buck' out of nothing by trying to 'scare' us into emptying the supermarket shelves? ;-)

Falco

[js.b1]

Most food can be shipped in refridgerated containers from anywhere in the world. Some food is airfreighted in, but not a huge amount whilst oil is >>45$/b due to penalty surcharges in freight contracts. Road traffic and associated freight costs are likely to rise, and there is already a shortage of container shipping (daily rate costs are high at the moment). The cost all gets passed along.

The problem is glacier interaction causing microscopic particles - fortunately the glacier is only about 0.2km thick so whilst the eruption may last some time the outfall particulate size will eventually enlarge and outflow will become lava flows.

That is to say the current particulate cloud production will not last

6-24 months (if it did kiss the airline industry and GDP goodbye), however its exact duration is uncertain - a day, a week, two weeks. It is delaying general airfreight, postal systems, business travel - not just food & tourists.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Some of the UK ready-prepared veg are flown abroad to be prepared and in some cases packaged, and then flown back. Cheaper than using UK labour to do it, and you can still claim it's UK produce.

[The Natural Philosopher]

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nearly all. No point in freezing it for QUICK delivery.

No, that's shipped.

It will be all the exotic fruit and veg - kenyan, Israeli, S African etc etc that will vanish. Maybe fresh coffee too. And flowers. All flown in from Holland.

[The Medway Handyman]

Best answer!

[Tim Watts]

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:59:08 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wibbled:

Live? Otherwise seems like a fair time to keep butchered lamb in refridgeration (not talking about frozen meat here).

Really? That could be driven here overnight surely...

[Tim Downie]

I've filled my garage with mange tout. Now all I have to do is wait for the price to rise... ;-)

Tim

[fred]

In article , Tim Watts writes

Dunno about lamb but I've got a label from some vac packed beef that has

4 months between the packing date and the use by date (for deep refrigerated storage at 2degC).

[Huge]

There's no need. The morons will empty the supermarkets all by themselves.

[Tim Streater]

They're not morons. Just people reacting rationally to a shortage.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You are. All NZ lamb is frozen, whether it appears that way in the S/market or not.

not sure.

>

[Tim Watts]

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:03:03 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wibbled:

You've just convinced me to buy British - local if possible...

The only time I've been to Holland (on work), we left Venlo (near the german border) late afternoon by car and were back in the south east by

2am IIRC, including an ill-timed long wait for the ferry (hour IIRC).

That seems to me to fit in very nicely with an overnight truck arriving in England in the early morning hours. Leave lunchtime and you'll probably manage to supply most of England that way.

[Steve Walker]

Local flowershop (Manchester area) is definitely supplied by a truck from Holland. Bloody great big thing it is and doesn't half get in the way of the local traffic while it's delivering - only twice a week though.

SteveW