2025, Food, home, Uncategorized

Stocking Up

23 Comments

Husband and I order lots of foods on-line that are imported. We get quite a bit from a Spanish importer, such as tomato sauces, olive oil, dried beans, serrano ham, and Spanish cheeses and pancetta. We also order pasta and parmesan cheese from an Italian importer, and gallon cans of Turkish olive oil from the Syrian grocery store in Fargo. We get beans from Rancho Gordo. I like to have a well stocked larder. We are really spoiled.

I find myself in a quandary now, due to the threat and uncertainty of tariffs, the fact that we are moving soon, and the fact that this is the the time of year to stock up on dried beans and other items as it is harvest time. There is a special bean from Spain called Tolosa beans, for example, that is essential to a soup we love to make, and is hard to find in the States after autumn. We are also trying to use up as much food we have currently so we don’t have to move it.

After the threats of tariffs emerged in the new year I ordered two gallons of Turkish olive oil and two half-gallons of Spanish olive oil before the price skyrocketed. We will have a lot of olive oil to move. Yesterday I ordered eight pounds of Rancho Gordo beans as we were short on some beans we cook often. They won’t take up too much room on the moving truck. I don’t plan to order any more food on-line at this point, but I am feeling increasingly militant about not letting politics interfere with my cooking or my finances.

How might tariffs impact your budget? What imported foods do you purchase? What foods do you make sure you have on hand?

23 thoughts on “Stocking Up”

  2. i was talking to costco about it the other day and they are all messed up with tarriffs making some foods too expensive so they are ordering extras of some and discontinuing others. i guess i dont read boxes very often . my teas come from india, friuts from south america, oils and canned goods from far away, clothing and car parts . heck everything comes from somewhere else. i love amazons idea to threaten listing how much of the price includes trumps tarriffs costco should do the same. my chinese job offer is on hold due to chinese tarriffs on everything offered. making wheelchairs and walkers 30% more expensive is exactly what old folks need to be made aware of.

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    1. Spot on, Tim.
      “Buy American” is stunningly simple minded. Did products magically appear in my apartment? Did the humans involved in the processes use 100% American made machinery, live in totally American made homes and eat 100% American made food?
      Slapping a little logo and flag on a can of tomato soup becomes meaningless.

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  3. Most impactful will be food prices. I’ve already seen about a 10% increase over the last year in our grocery costs. Wine has certainly gone up at least that much, especially imported wines (I don’t buy a lot of those, but will look for the occasional deal.) The tariffs will be insidious because we can’t know all the levels of production an item goes through anymore, where the products and raw materials originate from, and how much sellers are willing to absorb the higher costs and not directly pass them on to us.

    I’ve long believed that inflation is the single most regressive tax in the world. Everyone is hit by it, but we don’t notice because it’s death by a thousand tiny increases every year. The reason it’s the worst “tax” is that cost of living increases for wages are NEVER greater than the rate of inflation over the long term. You may get a one-or two-year raise that’s marginally higher than inflation, but over a lifetime, average people lose ground.

    That’s why we barely have a middle-class anymore: INFLATION. It all started with going off the gold standard and allowing fiat money, which is only backed by a government’s promise and ability to maintain it’s purchasing power. Sadly, it’s a corrupt system that makes everyone feel wealthier. Whoever thought fifty years ago that an average house would be worth $300,000? Our first house, bought in 1980, was definitely below average and cost $40,000.

    Becoming a millionaire was a lofty and difficult goal to achieve two generations ago. Now it seems millionaires are a dime a dozen, and the lofty goal now is to become a billionaire. And who believed that our government would incur $36 TRILLION in debt??? Remember when Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois said back in the 1960s: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Change the ‘b’ to a ‘tr’ and that’s where we are today. Incomprehensible numbers.

    This won’t end well, my friends. Either the government defaults on its debt one day, or we have an inflation crisis like Venezuela today, Yugoslavia in 1994, Zimbabwe in 2008, or Germany in 1923.

    Okay, I’m stepping off my soapbox. My only advice is spend a little bit less than your income just in case you need extra funds down the road.

    Imported food? Mostly EVOO, Parmigiana-Reggiano, the occasional wine, bananas, avocados, lots of other produce, others I can’t think of offhand.

    We always stock the basics: pasta, flour, soup, tomato sauce and paste, cereal, oatmeal, sugar, etc. Nothing too fancy.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  4. I’m not as fussy about EVOO. I use Spectrum Organic. I don’t think it’s imported, but the price has gone up in the past couple of years. I don’t think it’s from tariffs. Anyway, I have plenty stocked up, so that’s one thing I don’t need to worry about. I do have to move it though. Tea is lighter to move, and I have plenty of that as well. I really try hard to buy locally grown/produced foods. All the eggs I buy (including Ben’s) are from MN growers. The chicken and turkey I buy comes from Ferndale Farms in Cannon Falls. Most of the veggies I buy at this time of year are grown locally too. Fruits are the hardest thing because so many fruits and veggies come from California, Colorado, or Mexico. I buy as much as possible locally at this time of year. The Co-op makes it easier. There are also lots of veggie stands in my area at this time of year. I make use of those, and the RiverWalk Market Fair – all local growers and makers. I buy a lot of local apples as soon as they’re available.

    I usually freeze veggies, but like Renee, I don’t want to move them in about 18 days. I can work on that after I’ve moved in. The new refrigerator/freezer is a lot smaller than the Beast, which is a good thing. There isn’t much freezer space as it is. I might buy a freezer once I get moved in.

    Right now I’m in Two Harbors, sitting on the deck and watching the Lake change. It’s less angry today. It was wild yesterday. Rain is expected here today, but I haven’t seen any yet. I heard there’s been a lot of rain at home, and more is coming.

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  6. I shop at Aldi often, and a lot of Aldi food products come from Germany and the UK. I don’t read the labels consistently, so I’m not sure which things are which. Milk and dairy usually come from American farms, I think, and produce comes from South America. Coffee is a concern, it has been going up already and things will probably get worse. Trader Joe’s has a nice Spanish and Australian wines I buy frequently. Their price has been stable so far.

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    1. ALDI bought Trader Joe years ago. Joe “cut his teeth” in California when he found loopholes in wine taxing laws that enabled him to sell the Spanish and Australian stuff cheaper than locally grown and American-made wine.

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      2. I don’t believe that’s accurate, David. While the two companies do share some history, they’re not owned by the same company. One is privately held, the other is publicly traded.

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        1. Thank you for sending me on that quest. You are, indeed, accurate. ALDI doesn’t own Trader Joe’s, but the same Family company owns both of them. It’s kind of like how neither Dakota owns the other, but each of them is owned by the USA.

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  7. Milk. I Need MILK. And if we’re out, I get all bent out of shape. 🙂
    I drink a LOT of milk…

    Yeah, grocery prices are ridiculously stupid… $300 and I can still see the back of the fridge…

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  9. Anybody out there willing to take any bets about whether Renee and husband actually make it until they move without ordering any more food stuffs online?

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