Marketplace®

Daily business news and economic stories
Episode 171Apr 15, 2020

There’s plenty of food. Why can’t we get it?

America’s got warehouses full of frozen meat, potatoes, cheese and other food, but getting it to grocery stores is harder than you might expect.

Download
There's plenty of food, but don't expect to get the exact pork, pasta or baking products you want anytime soon.
There's plenty of food, but don't expect to get the exact pork, pasta or baking products you want anytime soon.
Scott Heins/Getty Images

Subscribe:

No matter how many times we hear that the U.S. has plenty of food, the sight of empty grocery store shelves can provoke anxiety.

As do stories about meat packing plants shutting down, tanking global trade and food banks stretching their resources. Should we worry?

Here to talk us through the disruptions in the supply chain is Millie Munshi, an agriculture editor at Bloomberg. She’ll tell us how we got here and which items might still be missing from your store for a while.

Plus, we’ll talk about Molly’s upcoming Wired column and an economic meltdown we narrowly avoided. Listen through to the end for stories from listeners struggling to get small business loans and trying to cope while sheltering in place.

When you’re done listening, tell your Echo device to “make me smart” for our Alexa explainers. This week: the nurse shortage, quarterly earnings and … viruses. Go figure. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter. Here’s the latest issue.

The Team

There’s plenty of food. Why can’t we get it?