Amazon Shopping List

It's been about 6 weeks since I posted my experience with Amazon Pantry during the early days of the pandemic. It wasn't very good. So, I decided to take my own advice and created a shopping list of Amazon Pantry items that I would consider buying (if they were available). My list consists of 20 items. As of April 30th, the total price for all of the items on my list was $69.34. Unfortunately, only 7 out of the 20 items are currently available. At the end of each month, I'm going to check the list again to see if prices have changed and how many items are available. This should tell me if  things are improving or getting worse at Amazon.

Amazon has one of their huge distribution centers in my city. I have read several news reports about employees walking off the job because they feel that Amazon isn't doing enough to protect their health. Amazon disclosed that 3 workers had tested positive for the virus at the facility near me. I suspect the number infected is larger than that, considering how easily the virus is spread, and the number of people working there (about a thousand). Similar outbreaks at meat packing plants around the country have also been in the news lately. This adds to the fear of anyone who works in close proximity to others. This all adds stress to our supply chain. Reading about farmers who have to dump milk or euthanize livestock and poultry because they can't find anyone to process their product is a breakdown in a food supply chain that has been over optimized. The most recent report shows 28 million people out of work. This week on the news, I saw lines of cars at drive-thru food banks. These are like a modern version of the soup lines from the 1930's. Things looked a little better at the grocery store this week. We found most of the items we were looking for. We even found some toilet paper, although the choices were few, and the prices are high.