read the entire article here:

Sam's Club, Costco Limit Rice Purchases - Business on The Huffington Post

__________________

I heard it is the USA fault. They put limits on the suppliers and so the suppliers are hoarding the rice.
This does not effect me. I just go get my huge bag from the Korean store. It last for six months

__________________
I am keeping my eye on you

I like rice too but my Korean boo loves it to death. He has to have it every day. We would still buy it no matter how much it goes up.

Price of rice has gone up. No longer are there sales for 10kg bags of rice in chinatown. At last count rice has gone up $1.50-$2.00 bux a bag depending on the brand.

Do a search on "rice" in tags link in menu bar. Tons of articles on soaring food prices, global inflation sparked by food shortages.

rice Threads - Forum Tags by Zoints

.

You know, I have a sam's account, MGB has a Costco one. He often wonders how they manage to both stay in business the way they do. I think they must have some secret monopoly practices going on behind the scenes.

Ever notice how Sam's seems to have better food items and Costco better electronics? This whole rice 'hoarding' attempt further highlights my theory.

Why on earth would a business choose not to sell their product? ...because they know that if they hold it they can sell it for more in a few weeks, assholes. And coincidently, they are both doing it. So one can't go to Sam's and buy the rice Costco wouldn't sell and vice versa.

__________________

...like opec hoards oil, no different. check the gas prices recently? wtf?? key point is this. kick urself in the ass once you find out how low wholesale prices really are. why else is hellmart listed in top 500 every fucking yr?!

well OPEC is a coalition of suppliers with the intent to get the best bang for their buck with regards to oil. Walmart and Costco are retailers who are supposed to resell items..they don't control supply, but they are trying. Considering that farming is subsidized in the united states, I call bullshit on this.

Edit: let me add, that countries who sell their natural resources generally realize they are at a disadvantage, so OPEC has some legitimacy to try to stabalize prices in their own favor. Walmart hoarding subsized food items has no legitimacy in my eyes.

__________________

The article is pretty much accurate. Specialty rices have jumped up versus regular long grain rice which have risen marginally up here. If supply is restricted and wholesale inventories is declining for specialty rices and certain brands of long rain rice then yes, major discounters will limit consumption. I've seen it here. We have discounters like Costco and retailers like Food Basics and Knob Hill Farms limit consumption on various items not just rice. Basic supply and demand curve. You have these merchants like convenience stores, restaurants who come in and hoard on the supply leaving nothing for regular folk. Guys who have 3-4 carriages full of cases of purified water when they go on sale. Then they get their friends/relatives to do the same so the clerks won't notice. Rice is still pretty cheap here. 10kg (approx 20 lb) bags go on avg $9.99. Cow brand being more expensive is like $13.99 max that I've seen.

But the deal is you have to know the owners of asian restaurants. They get theirs in 100 lb bags shipped via warehouses. One is enough to last you a year. 2-3 bags for a family of 4 for a year if they eat rice consistently everyday. Retail price is about $40 a bag or less. So knowing a restaurant owner is the key. They just order an extra 1-2 bags for you. They pay the wholesale delivery and you pay the owner maybe a small premium. Works out to $8 bucks/20 lb bag versus $15/20 lb bag at Costco.

As for the hoarding question that's hard to say. It depends on when they got their shipments and how long they've had it. If Walmart got their shipments in recently then they factor the prices based on current futures value on CBOT. They wouldn't hoard the inventory as they would dump it at the current price. Never keep high priced inventories in storage, just depletes your profit from being retained by selling it. The older shipments say Costco/Sam Club's maybe had before the rise in rice futures went to $25/hundred weight. They have a wider spread in profit and rice is not exactly a perishable food item. They can wait and limit inventories whilst having a higher profit margin. Like wise they can discount the price and still beat Walmart if they went head to head and still retain the same percentage profit.

.

hoarding to stop hoarding!! *shakes head*

__________________