Will County Farm Bureau Explains That Packaging The Problem In Food Supply Chain

Will County Farm Bureau manager Mark Schneidewind says there is a lot of food like milk and eggs but it may not be getting to your local grocery store. Farmers send about 50-percent of their commodities to schools, restaurants and hotels but with COVID-19 it all changed overnight. With 100 percent of food going to the grocery store.

Instead of the public eating out, we’re mostly cooking at home. Schneidewind says distributors used to packaging foods for large scale use at restaurants or selling pints of milk in school cafeterias, are having to change their packaging to support 100-percent of their goods going to your local grocery store.

Farmers may be resistant to making permanent changes because once the food supply shifts back to schools and restaurants the packaging will have to change again.

In Wisconsin thousands of gallons of milk was thrown away due to expiration dates. Good news is that 8 to 9 percent of corn has been planted this year. A better start than last year’s wet spring and summer.