Don’t Be Scared; Be Prepared

The truth is, as a nation we have little to no warehousing backup in the event of a food supply shortage.
Don’t Be Scared; Be Prepared
Instead of every supermarket needing a warehouse to store large quantities of food to be sold locally, computers keep track of inventory, placing relatively small orders daily. This precludes the need for massive warehousing. Retailers know their orders will arrive "just in time" to keep the shelves filled. Kira_Yan Photography/Shutterstock
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If there is one thing most people take for granted, it is food. U.S. supermarkets are always well stocked, and we don’t think much about how all that food gets there. When pushed to consider it, I wager most of us assume there are huge warehouses somewhere filled with enough food to feed the nation for some unknown period of time.

The truth is, as a nation we have little to no warehousing backup in the event of a supply shortage. Our concentrated supermarket supply system uses a technology known as JIT (Just-in-Time), a method made possible by computers and the internet.

Mary Hunt
Mary Hunt
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