WHO’S EATING ALL THE BAKED BEANS?
Things are pretty grim when you can’t buy a can of baked beans anywhere.
There are around 6,500 supermarkets and grocery stores in Australia. Imagine for a moment if we averaged out the number of cans of baked beans per store to only 200. That equates to 1.3 MILLION cans of beans that have disappeared off the shelves in the past month since the COVID-19 panic began. The USA and UK have a combined 55,000 major supermarkets, which means a minimum 11 MILLION cans of baked beans have vanished. Imagine if the average number of cans held in stock was double that. We’d be looking for nearly 25 million cans of baked beans in just three countries.
So who’s eating all the baked beans? Is that why so many toilet rolls have been bought? Are we about to experience a tsunami of baked bean-fuelled overload into our sewers? These are the questions that stimulate the Elbit in us and give us cause to worry that we might have missed something. Every time I see a bare shelf in the supermarket now, I wonder what message these shelf strippers have heard that I haven’t. Did I dash off to the loo while they were announcing a call for human methane production? I know that in the natural order of things, those millions of cans equate to a couple per household, but that’s not how they were purchased – they were whipped off the shelves in bulk by a select few before any rationing was implemented here in Australia.
I’m sure the average (and not-so-average) conspiracy theorist’s take on the situation would be entertaining, but as yet I’ve not come across an explanation of any sort, and that drives my inner Elbit mad. Back in the early 1970s during the whole anti-Vietnam War counterculture movement, an impressionable teenager wrote a book entitled The Anarchist’s Cookbook. The book was literally a recipe book for all kinds of explosives, weapons, illicit drugs and much more. At some point in my life, I found myself as a government employee on an explosives devices course (not making them, but identifying them). One of the instructors told us that most of the advice in the book was gleaned from Vietnam Veterans, and in one recipe, a certain mass-produced biscuit was recommended for use in home-made bombs due to its high oxygen content. With that knowledge, I’m thankful that those particular biscuits have not yet been panic bought, because my inner Elbit would probably have several apoplectic fits if I saw those shelves empty. However, I can’t help thinking about that course, the book and the missing beans – let’s hope there’s no connection, and the only explosion is bowel related!
Mind you, that’s not the most concerning thing to me about the great baked bean disappearance. You see, it’s not just the decent brands that have been panic bought. Also missing are those hideous home-brand bullets that swim in a thin excuse for tomato sauce and disintegrate into mush the moment you crack the outer shell. Clearly, the average sane person is not going to tuck into them without good reason, so who on earth has them all? And don’t get me started on the spaghetti, because those cans are also MIA. Occasionally, you might see a few ham or cheese flavoured offerings sitting alone, untouched and unwanted by all who pass by in search of the good stuff, but never those delightfully plump worms of pasta in rich tomato sauce that sit invitingly on buttered toast and send steamy messages to the saliva glands. They too have disappeared into the mists of time with the hand-wash, toilet paper, reasonably priced veggies, pasta, rice, flour, eggs, tinned fish and bread. As I write this, my inner Elbit is wondering if I’m not inadvertently typing out the formula to a COVID-19 vaccine known only to human locusts!
So, what’s next? If the navy bean growers of the world can’t keep up, or if it’s the wrong time of the year for harvesting and canning, what tinned food is next to fall victim to panic buying? Could it be Spam, rice pudding, sweet corn, mushy peas, soup or pineapple chunks? Perhaps it’s canned dog food (which won’t help with the methane situation, believe me!)? Your guess is as good as mine, and I think that’s the point here. People are guessing; trying to think about what might be in short supply should things get worse, and their knee-jerk response is to buy up as much as they can. Although my inner Elbit doubts me, I’m fairly certain nobody has a clue about how this will all pan out, so they’re doing what they can by purchasing their own perception of security. When this is all over, and it will be, I have a feeling the traditional Garage Sale is going to look a lot different to what it once did. Instead of cheap tat changing hands from one household that never uses it to another that will never use it, people will be selling cans of food they don’t expect to consume before 2285. If that’s the case, then a lot of us will be buying some perfectly good, exceptionally cheap baked beans and spaghetti in the future. The middle man will, for the first time in history, bring down the price of goods on their way to the end user, and the only things left behind at a billion Garage Sales will be all of the unwanted, hideous home-brand bullets that swim in a thin excuse for tomato sauce and disintegrate into mush the moment you crack the outer shell.
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Elbit vs. COVID-19 