What's up with sugar.
It seems like every time I stop at the store the shelves are whipped out.
I haven't seen dark brown sugar in well over a year or more.
I've basically forgotten the last time I've seen it.
Or is it the store is cleaned out on sugar by the time I get there.
I've
I go into the HEB at Bear Creek area next to where I work at right after 7 and all the shelves are stocked and no night stockers are around.
In Bastrop they are everywhere even at 9 in the morning still stocking shelves and you can't hardly get around.
This morning I picked up my bacon ends and pieces at the store next to work because they are gone by 4 pm in Bastrop.
I do know people from East Austin the Del Valle area shop in Bastrop.
They have no HEB or a Walmart.
And it's easier to drive to Bastrop than go into a good HEB in Austin.
Elgin has a little HEB and Walmart and I know people drive to Bastrop to shop.
People in Smithville drive to Bastrop and La Grange as well.
La Grange has a small HEB.
Manor Texas has no HEB so lord only knows where they go.
Maybe Bastrop because a good HEB is rather far away in a town north of Manor and lots of traffic.
Basically there is a shortage or our town needs another store besides Walmart.

I’ve noticed the sugar shortage as well. They had zero store brand, HEB or Hill Country Faire, so I bought Imperial.

HEB built a new HEB at hwy 6 and 288 in Manvel. That’s taken some of the pressure off our store as the Dow crowd heading home to the city in the evening stop in Manvel now.

I found imperial to be cheaper than HEB brand a couple of times.
The HCF is I think made from sugar beets.
Simply because it doesn't say cane sugar.

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 9:29 am I found imperial to be cheaper than HEB brand a couple of times.
The HCF is I think made from sugar beets.
Simply because it doesn't say cane sugar.

Imperial is finer grained than most other brands of sugar.

People and many scientists specifically will often try to tell you that beet sugar and cane sugar are identical, but experienced bakers and many people can detect the difference in performance in baked goods and also in taste and aroma. Beet sugar has a burnt sugar aftertaste and cane sugar has a cleaner fruity aftertaste. They are 99.5% identical, but that .5% makes a difference. Like humans and chimpanzees sharing 98.8% DNA. Big deal obviously as the differences are vast in that 1.2%

Even I with my not super great sense of smell and taste can taste the difference between beet sugar and cane sugar.

Cane sugar isn’t strictly vegan either. Bone products are used to whiten Cane Sugar.

I've still noticed an occasional store in my area with sugar on sale - under $2 for 4 lb bags of white, and sometimes $1.19 for 2 lbs of the browns. And I've noticed some stores with ads that have sugar @$3.49/4 lbs...like that's a sale! And I still have 7 bags of the white, and a few browns, in my pantry - probably enough to last me until next cookie season! So no sugar shortage here.

I remember reading something about a sugar shortage back in November when I was starting my Christmas cookie baking. I just looked it up again to refresh my memory of why. Interesting article on various international aspects of the shortage.

https://apnews.com/article/sugar-prices ... 6b31658f41

Some highlights:

India and Thailand, the world’s second- and third-largest sugar suppliers have been in severe drought due to El Nino and that has drastically reduced their export of sugar. Since India is also the world's largest consumer of sugar, they're reducing export of what they have.

Prices will increase.

Brazil’s harvest is forecast to be 20% bigger than last year’s but we won't see any of it until late March. It will help some but when you spread it all around the world it won't make a lot of difference.

1.2 percent is an astronomical amount of DNA.
It's around 35 million possible results.
They say coal oil and kerosene are chemicaly the same as well.
But it seems like every time I go to the store the sugar is literally empty of sugar.
There were a few bags of imperial left but I didn't get one just out of greed.
It may be my downfall and already has to some degree.
But I think of other people that might not have anything at all.
I'm not going to be that person that takes when they have plenty only to hurt someone else that doesn't have anything.

And here's a twist to the shortage story. Brazil has excess sugar piling up at docks because the infrastructure can't handle it as they also had bumper crops of soy and corn.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/busines ... ly-crunch/

Well I took lunch and ran back over to the store in Bear Creek and bought some sugar.
I was down to about 2 pounds.
Also got some pickling spice and allspice my store seems to be out of all the time.
If I would have waited until after work it would have been a nightmare in Bastrop.

Yesterday I checked the sugar at Walmart. All they had was a decent supply of 10 lb bags. There were no 5 lb, er, make that 4 lb bags on the shelf at all.

I have not seen any shortage on sugar here. Then most of the sugar that graces our shelves comes from Detroit, that is beet sugar which is just fine for most purposes. I buy cane sugar for the hummingbirds. It has been hard to find for the past 4 years here but in the past few months I have seen cane sugar in all of our stores and sometimes on sale. I have been stocking up when I find it on sale.

No shortage here that I have noticed, even over the holidays with all the baking. Sales, but not really great ones.

I better stock up. My wife uses 50-75 lbs for hummers every summer.