I really need to quit going over for coffee, but I gue$$ I feel I soon will not be allowed to so....
"Amazon lures food-stamp shoppers as online buying surges 50-fold" by Matt Day Bloomberg, November 11, 2020
Ian Babcock used to take the bus from his home in northern Michigan to get groceries, a trip that was inconvenient before the pandemic made it dangerous. For the last several months, he’s been using his food-stamp benefits to get groceries delivered by Amazon.
“It potentially is a lifesaver for me,” he said.
Babcock is among one million-plus US households now using government benefits each month to buy groceries online. Their numbers spiked 50-fold this year after the spread of COVID-19 prompted the US Department of Agriculture to make it easier for food-stamp recipients to shop on the web. While the USDA declined to provide an industry breakdown of such purchases, the main beneficiaries are Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. — the only retailers in most states to take part in the agency’s online shopping pilot.
NO KIDDING?
HMMMM!
For Seattle-based Amazon, the USDA program is an opportunity to get a chunk of the $55 billion that food-stamp recipients spent last year, purchasing that surged 20 percent in the first four months of 2020. It also lets the company court a cohort that has traditionally patronized Walmart or other discount grocers. Amazon is nearing saturation with higher-income US households and has few other sources of new, potentially loyal customers in its most important market.
In the New World Order after the Great Reset, Bezos will be in charge of food and commerce and everything will be delivered to your door!
The 1.1 million households that bought subsidized groceries online in September represent a small fraction of total food aid; more than 22 million households participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in April, according to the most recent overall program data, but it’s made a difference for people who’d rather not risk a trip to the store.
The printed Globe didn't, but the web version kept fea$ting:
Organizations working to eliminate hunger cheer the program’s growth but, citing limited data from the government and participating retailers, are reluctant to say the online pilot is meeting all the needs of people, particularly those with mobility or health issues. Some worry the predominance of two large retailers comes at the expense of local grocers. (USDA said in a statement last week that more retailers would soon join.) Both Amazon and Walmart have been criticized by activists who say the large number of SNAP recipients on their payrolls is evidence they treat workers poorly.
Anti-hunger advocates also fret that many SNAP participants live in areas where fresh food delivery remains unavailable. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank in June raised concerns that the program risked perpetuating a history of systemic racism in apportioning government benefits after discovering that neither retailer delivered fresh groceries to SNAP recipients in Marin County, which includes low-income enclaves like Marin City. Amazon expanded the coverage of its same-day delivery service in 2016 after a Bloomberg News analysis found that the company’s same-day delivery service excluded predominantly Black ZIP codes in six cities.
Starve whitey!
Analysts say serving SNAP recipients could help Amazon expand its customer base, which tends to attract a more affluent shopper. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates that US Prime subscribers have an average household income of about $78,000, some 15 percent more than the median.
“Amazon is probably not a place SNAP participants typically think of,” said Ed Bolen, a senior policy analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who studies the SNAP program.
In an e-mailed statement, Amazon’s director of underserved populations, Kristina Herrmann, said the company believes the program “will dramatically increase access to food for more customers and are excited about the adoption thus far.” Amazon says Fresh is available in “most metropolitan regions” and those who live elsewhere can purchase non-perishable items from the main site.
“We know this is a very important development for our customers that we worked closely with the USDA to push forward,” Walmart spokesperson Molly Blakeman said by e-mail. More than half of the company’s 4,700 US stores offer delivery while 70 percent offer grocery pickup, she said.
Ruth Ilano, a comic artist in Massachusetts with multiple sclerosis, was making a quick trip to the store in May when she collapsed. She hasn’t gone inside a supermarket since and is using SNAP benefits to help pay for groceries online.
“Online delivery was previously a nice touch,” she said, “but now it’s absolutely essential to my life.”
It's a time-tested theory of tyranny and it works.
You make necessities out of luxuries (think cellphone).
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Related:
Bezos announces first grants to fight climate change
He's pledged $10 billion to combat climate change, and integral component of the fa$ci$t Great Re$et.
This comes after an ambitious expansion of the safety net in the spring saved millions of people from poverty, but that aid is now largely exhausted and poverty has returned to levels higher than before the coronavirus crisis, according to the New York Times, and has anyone noticed that the world’s billionaires are getting richer during the COVID fraud?
My pre$$ says it is just a coincidence and that the $afety net not only held but made us all rich.
Meanwhile, Walmart has taken its shoes off and moved to Japan while Apple is targeting Spain and Germany and fake reviews on Amazon.com during the pandemic have reached levels typically seen during the holiday shopping season.
The famine is on its way, folks, no matter who is president, with planned power outages as well to get you into those COVID extermination camps, 'er, quarantine centers.
"At supermarkets, they’re prepping for panic buying; Grocers and their suppliers say they’re better prepared now if there’s another COVID-19 surge" by Andy Rosen Globe Staff, October 19, 2020
Who can forget the the bare supermarket shelves that marked the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic? Everything from toilet paper to canned soup was in short supply, and each trip to the grocery store was a grim lesson in how deeply the virus had disrupted our lives.
I agree, the once-pleasurable experience is no longer enjoyable and is now very stressful and harmful, and we have been told grocery stores aren't vectors so WTF?
Supply and demand have caught up with each other in the intervening months, and buying household staples has become fairly routine again, but with winter approaching, and the threat of a second surge of the virus looking more likely, are we on the verge of another period of shortages and panic buying?
Not necessarily. This time, grocers, suppliers, and even consumers have the benefit of experience, and people in the industry say they’ve taken advantage of the time they’ve had to prepare for another onslaught.
Retailers and wholesalers have been stockpiling items that would be most coveted if customers must retreat to their homes again, and they are hopeful that shoppers will be less likely to hoard supplies this time around — reducing the strain on the system, but supply chains take a long time to align with fast-moving shifts in customer demand. Some goods, including paper towels and cleaning products, still have not entirely caught up.
“There are still some items that we really cannot get,” said Michael Violette, chief executive of Associated Grocers of New England, a wholesale distribution center for the region’s independent grocers.
A resurgence of the virus could also disrupt production of products such as fresh produce and meat.
Nada R. Sanders, distinguished professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, said the prospect of shortages remains considerable as Thanksgiving and the winter holidays approach.
“The level of panic may not be as much as it was in the spring, but I think the consumer demand will be as high through the holidays,” she said. “Once we are done with the holidays, we are going to start seeing a dip back to normalcy.”
Even if no crisis emerges this winter, the pandemic has already changed how grocers stock their stores, in ways that customers can expect to see for a long time.
In the spring, Sanders said, “there was this fear that grocery stores, everything, entire cities will be shut down. That is not going to happen under any circumstances.”
I will hold her to that.
The Globe assures us there will be enough toilet paper, so don’t panic, but paper towels may be a problem and fresh foods are a wild card as retailers stock up.
Better get over to the food bank right away:
"In Salem, staving off hunger one bag of groceries at a time" by Hayley Kaufman Globe Staff, October 28, 2020
SALEM — Like many food banks, the Salem Pantry has seen demand soar during the COVID-19 crisis, and with the city’s signature Halloween festivities canceled or limited and even Governor Charlie Baker urging revelers to stay away, economic hardship here looks likely to deepen. The number of clients in the pantry’s database has nearly tripled, from 900 before the pandemic to 2,600 now. Food distribution at Salem State University is now held every Wednesday in addition to alternate Saturdays at Palmer Cove Park. A family grocery program, in partnership with the Salem schools, takes place Mondays and Fridays.
“October sustains Salem in the winter, and this year we don’t have that,” said Jacquie Valatka, who picked up vegetables at Palmer Cove. As business manager at the House of the Seven Gables, one of Salem’s historic attractions, she was worried about what Halloween cancellations will mean for jobs in the city, including her own. At this time of year on a weekend, the Seven Gables would typically welcome a thousand visitors a day.
Fallout from the pandemic has hit Salem hard. Almost 18 percent of the city’s residents are Latino, a population that has been disproportionately affected by the outbreak, and long before COVID struck, more than 15 percent of Salem residents were living below the poverty line, according to census data, about 4 percent more than the state average.
The shutdown pushed food distribution to 400 percent of what it had been, and increased demand lingered through summer. In August, two forces conspired to drive need higher still: the enhanced unemployment benefits so many relied on dropped off at the end of July, and Salem saw a spike in COVID cases that temporarily landed it on the state’s list of high-risk communities. The Salem Pantry distributed nearly 100,000 pounds of food in August, more than any other month since the pandemic began, and now, with colder weather moving in and another federal coronavirus relief package looking iffy, hopes for a quick turnaround have dimmed. Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll recently announced further Halloween restrictions because of the health crisis. Businesses will close early. Parking will be limited, but better to take precautions now, Driscoll has told local business leaders, than to see virus cases spike later.
“It’s not just about October,” she said. “It’s about November, December, and January. We don’t want to do anything now that’s going to push us into a phase that we’d have to shut down completely.”
Baker echoed her concerns . “A typical Halloween weekend in Salem is not manageable with respect to the issues that the mayor and her team are talking about today,” he said, pointing out that on a normal weekend day 50,000 to 60,000 visitors — “a Gillette Stadium’s worth of people” — would be jostling along the city streets this time of year. “Vigilance is critical here.”
Robyn Burns, the Salem Pantry’s executive director, looks toward the coming months with trepidation. “There’s just this uncertainty," she said, “and, more practically speaking, some of the food streams are potentially drying up.”
The pantry is a small operation, just one strand in a web of organizations in cities and towns across Massachusetts straining to meet the sharp rise in hunger as the pandemic grinds on. The pantry, along with more than 500 partner agencies in Eastern Massachusetts, works with the Greater Boston Food Bank, which projects that more than one in seven Massachusetts residents will experience food insecurity this year, including one in five children. Additional food streams have helped during COVID, but they are short-term supports. A USDA Farmers to Family program, extended twice during the pandemic, is slated to end this month.
“It’s not just that we have so many more clients,” said Burns, “it’s that people are coming so many more times a month because some of their other sources of food or income are not available.”
Hunger cuts across populations here. At the Salem State pantry, college students and some employees affiliated with the school come each week, as do neighbors. At Palmer Cove Park, in a neighborhood that’s home to many Latino families, most of those who waited in line on a recent Saturday spoke Spanish. Frail seniors wheeled carts stacked with peanut butter, macaroni, and shelf-stable milk. A middle-aged man in camouflage told volunteers he hoped his appointment at Lahey Medical Center in Peabody would alleviate his excruciating back pain.
Getting food to those in need has been an exercise in nimbleness and creativity. More elderly clients, at high risk for coronavirus, needed food delivered. Pantry distribution sites had to be modified for safety. Even the process of bagging groceries had to change to keep clients and volunteers socially distanced. In the midst of it all, with the help of grants, they built out a food storage and distribution warehouse at Shetland Park. They bought a van and started using a route optimizer to deliver more food, faster.
These days, other organizations set up alongside the pantry as a way to reach residents. One weekend, North Shore Medical Center provided virus testing. The North Shore Community Development Coalition delivered toiletries, hygiene products, and diapers. Census workers came. The League of Women Voters set up a tent to get people registered.
On this Saturday, Stephen Zrike Jr. arrived holding a stack of fliers. Zrike became superintendent of the Salem Public Schools on July 1 but struggled to meet parents and families, especially those who might need additional services from the schools. He finally found himself at Palmer Cove Park. The fliers let families know about a “geek squad” of bilingual parents who were available to help with computer or technical problems associated with remote learning.
“This is the most people you’ll find anywhere,” Zrike said, motioning to the crowd lined up for groceries. “People aren’t congregating, and they shouldn’t be. So that makes it a little hard to get the word out.”
Soon the pantry crew will have to quit the park. It’ll be too cold, and the wind off the harbor could blow the tents over. They’ll return to Espacio, a small storefront a couple of blocks away. That’ll be an adjustment: health guidelines could mean fewer volunteers to a shift. Only one or two clients will be allowed inside at a time, so it’ll be slow going. At Salem State, they’ll be in a smaller space, too, and if virus cases surge, as many epidemiologists fear they will, pantry organizers will have to figure out new strategies to keep residents safe and fed.
Rebecca Babbitt Chafe, a pantry volunteer, said the changes can be challenging, but the goal is to maintain consistency for the food bank clients. Thinking about the coming months makes her nervous, she said, but also determined.
“We’ve all got to roll with the punches these days, right?” she said.....
I have a few I would like to throw, but I'm a peaceful and patient man.
After I finished the article I realized that Ms. Kaufman doesn't have to worry about where her next meal is coming from, right?
And when he got there, the supermarket was..... closed?
"Quincy food store closed due to COVID-19 cases; health officials want to know if you were there between Oct. 2 and Oct. 11" by John R. Ellement Globe Staff, October 13, 2020
A second employee at the Fruit Basket Marketplace in Quincy has tested positive for COVID-19 and the city continues to ask anyone who was in the store between Oct. 2 and Oct. 11 to contact them, especially if they are experiencing any symptoms.
The city alerted the public Monday on its Facebook account that a single case of COVID had been detected at the Granite Street store. City Health Commissioner Ruth Jones said in a telephone interview Tuesday that a second of the store’s four employees has now tested positive. Both employees worked between Oct. 2 and Oct. 11.
Jones said customers who were in the store for brief periods — less than 15 minutes — are not likely to have health concerns related to exposure to the employees. (If they feel symptomatic they should be tested, she stressed.)
Of greater concern, Jones said, are customers who were in the store for longer periods. “The people in there more than 15 minutes, those are the people that we recommend talk with their physician or go get tested” if they experience symptoms, Jones said.
That is despite a Defense Department study of the risk of catching the coronavirus on a packed commercial flight that concluded that a person would have to be sitting next to an infectious passenger for at least 54 hours to receive a dangerous dose of the virus through the air.
The social distancing thing is a crock!
Jones said the store employees have been following COVID-19 safety guidelines regularly since they were imposed by the Baker administration, and that it’s not known how the highly contagious disease infected first one, then two employees.
As part of the critical public health measure of contact tracing, the city is asking anyone at the store during those days to contact the Health Department, the city said. “The store is working with the Health Department on the issue, and will remain closed until further notice.”
Jones said the store, once it undergoes a decontamination, can reopen, but with just four employees impacted — the two other employees must self-quarantine — there is no one available to operate the store.
Meanwhile, the city is starting in-school instruction....
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Something is rotten in the city of Bo$ton:
"Legal Sea Foods in talks with corporate restaurant group PPX; The role that CEO Roger Berkowitz may play in this ‘new venture’ is unclear" by Jon Chesto, Devra First and Anissa Gardizy Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, October 29, 2020
For years, Roger Berkowitz has been the face of Legal Sea Foods, one of Boston’s oldest and best-known restaurant chains. The two brands — Roger and Legal — have become inseparable, but could someone new end up being the owner?
Word that the investors in the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse chain are in talks with Legal prompted restaurant industry insiders to ponder that once-unthinkable question on Thursday. The COVID-19 pandemic has not been easy on sit-down restaurants, particularly ones such as Legal, where Berkowitz prides himself on the freshness of his meals.
“I was shocked,” said Steve DiFillippo, who runs the Davio’s restaurant group and considers Berkowitz a mentor, upon hearing the news.
“It just breaks my heart" if Berkowitz were to sell the group, said DiFillippo, who recalled similar emotions when Charlie Sarkis sold the Abe & Louie’s steakhouse to an out-of-town buyer in 2011. “I feel like we’re losing our town.”
The the price of going along with COVID $CAM and GREAT RE$ET that the Globe is promoting, and I couldn't care less about their $tinking city at this point.
