Major German Grocery Chain Warns of Looming Butter, Milk, and Meat Shortages

Just like that, the happy™ times in 2025 vanish--as we're about the face the Cantillon Effect spread to the food supply, serious questions about the next 20-25 years must be addressed

Translation, emphases, [and snark] mine, as are the bottom lines.

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Milk, Meat, and Butter are Becoming Scarce: Metro Boss Sounds the Alarm: Europe Must Figure Out Where it Can Still Get Food

Via Focus.de, 20 Dec. 2024 [source]

At the wholesaler’s annual press conference last week, Metro CEO Steffen Greubel made it clear just how important the issue of security of supply is by voluntarily addressing it. A journalist had actually only asked Greubel how he wanted to organise the Düsseldorf-based group’s purchasing in future. Centralised for all countries or more local, depending on the region? [the former is the EU’s desire, which will end like all such centralised-managerial nightmares: first come the food queues, then the riots, and ultimately the collapse] But in the middle of his answer, Greubel changed his mind.

‘We have to make sure that we guarantee security of supply’

‘We will experience a situation here in Europe where we have to make sure that we guarantee security of supply,’ he said. Pause. Serious looks, then he continued:

If you look at what is being done in meat, fruit, and vegetables and production in Germany, but also in Europe, how it is changing and shifting, you have to meet the producers. So that they also give us the products. The availability of food will be the bigger challenge than price in the long term [rule by technocratic experts™ in a nutshell]

Another pause. Then Greubel added:

You didn’t ask me about that, but that’s what I said.

As head of Metro AG, Greubel knows the challenges of food purchasing better than almost anyone else. His company is one of the largest wholesalers in Europe and supplies restaurants, cafés, and hotels in more than 30 countries, primarily with food and beverages. If supplies falter, Greubel is one of the first to notice [According to Wikipedia, ‘in 2010, it was the fourth-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues, after Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco’—and if these words haven’t impressed you, re-read them].

More Difficult Supply Lines Drive Up Prices

Greubel has now made it clear that supply is becoming more difficult. ‘It has something to do with the climate, but also with regulation and political will.’

• Livestock numbers in Germany are decreasing, so Metro is now buying more pork from Spain.

• Spain is producing less citrus fruit, so Metro buys them now in Africa [would they adhere to stringent EU/EEC regulations about, say, pesticides and herbicides?].

• On the price of butter: ‘Everyone is asking: why are butter prices going up? Because there are fewer cattle and the milk has a lower fat content [thank you, EU regulations to ‘save da climate™’], because the feed is worse when fertiliser regulations are changed.’

Greubel left no doubt that Metro could still guarantee supplies across the board. However, because more buyers are fighting over the same resources, prices are destined to rise [and Metro—as well as other large, Western retailers, by extension—can do so because they vacuum up food elsewhere; if your groceries go up and you can’t go on vacation, that’s unpleasant; spare a thought for, say, kids in Sub-Saharan Africa and image where their food prices are going and what that means].

Climate Change, Regulations, and Price Pressure

Greubel is not alone in his warning. It is well known that climate change is forcing adjustments and, for example, shifting wine-growing northwards [incidentally, read this piece from The Independent about viticulture in Roman Britain]. But the problems [sic, but keep this in mind] go further.

‘The economic situation on organic farms is serious’, warned the Association of Milk Producers in a joint press release with organic associations such as Naturland and Bioland. A litre of organic milk costs almost 70 cents to produce, but organic farmers only receive just under 60 cents per litre [which is not the producer’s fault but pressure from whole-sellers, such as Metro AG]. Many organic farmers were therefore paying themselves exploitative wages, while others were giving up. As a solution, organic farmers are calling for statutory rules for cost-covering prices [price controls have never fixed a problem; the issue here is that a free market would solve this problem, but prices are rising well in excess of farmers breaking even, which indicates that the price gougers are elsewhere—higher up the food supply chain, and it begins with exploitative contracts offered by the likes of Metro AG]. Many farmers raised similar issues at the recent farmers’ protests.

The example shows that, regardless of how the state reacts, milk will either become more expensive or less expensive for people in Germany. A future with the same prices and the same security of supply seems unlikely [this is gaslighting on the next level: produce any kind of food, there’s a ton of state, federal, and EU regulations that impose ever-changing burdens on farmers; on the other hand, most people now live in cities and they seem to just not care about the stuff they eat; direct sales from producer (farmer) to consumer (city-people) would be able to undermine the Big Gov’t/Big Ag/whole-sellers (like Metro AG) cartel, which is why these people fight against family farms tooth and nail]

Food is getting more expensive in restaurants too—or we’ll stick with factory farming [this is Metro AG’s aim: the continuation of the Big Gov’t/Big Ag/whole-sellers cartel with gov’t limitations, cloaked disingenuously in ‘save the climate™’ and accessibility regulations, to have one set of rules for them (‘hey, we’re guaranteeing the food supply here’) vs. another set of rules (full tilt on all regulations, limitations, etc.) for family farms].

A similar dilemma [sic]: although prices in restaurants have risen significantly in recent years, most restaurateurs are less likely to buy products from high-level farming methods than private households. Caterers in all countries are interested in three things first and foremost, said Greubel: price, quality, and availability [which of these will first go for the Big Gov’t/Big Ag/whole-sellers cartel? You know that it’s ‘quality’]. Then nothing for a very long time. Then, for some, the way meat is produced. Metro must therefore offer these products [meant are low-price/unit ‘meat™’]. Otherwise the company would take itself out of the market.

In concrete terms, this means that if you pay 20 euros for a schnitzel or burger in a restaurant, you rarely get free-range meat on your table [I think this is true and false at the same time: often, you will be told it’s grass-fed, free-range beef when it’s not]. If this is to change, people in Germany would probably have to pay significantly higher prices [food prices in Germany are already significantly lower than, say, in Austria where I grew up, to say nothing about Switzerland; most food available in German grocery stores is also of quite poor quality, which is, I think, why this sentence has enormous significance that’s ill understood by the journos™ editing this piece: raise food prices in Germany—which has a large low-pay sector due to the SPD’s so-called Hartz IV reforms—and you will increase pressures on large segments of residents overnight]. Another supply issue with no simple solution.

Nevertheless, the EU recently agreed a trade agreement with the South American states of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Together they form the Mercosur trade association. In future, trade tariffs between the EU and Mercosur are to be abolished, which would make agricultural products from these countries significantly cheaper [perhaps in Europe, but not in South America, plus it puts Europe-based farmers at a massive disadvantage, which is why there were so many farmers’ protests in autumn]. Among other things, Europe buys meat, fruit, and soya from the Mercosur countries. Politicians are therefore endeavouring to secure food at reasonable prices [they are doing so because food riots will spell the end of their ill-earned perks].

However, it remains to be seen whether this agreement will materialise. France and Poland want to oppose it because their farmers are protesting. They fear being forced out of the market by cheap competitors from South America [this is also partially false as the ‘cheap’ part isn’t the production but the envisioned removal of tariffs on food].

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Bottom Lines

It’s rare for such comments to be made in the first place, and I think the significance of these isn’t anything this person Greubel has said—but that it’s a kind of ‘predictive programming’ for rising grocery prices.

Hear me out: the framing of the piece is basically, stop protesting/supporting the farmers and get in line behind the EU-Mercosur agreement so that you may (or may not) continue to have access to cheap(er) food.

Still, I think what the Metro CEO also said about food security is telling, if not for the reasons he cited. Supermarket shelves are overflowing with a seemingly ever-increasing variety of food brands, which are controlled by a but a handful of mega corporations (like Metro) whose institutional owners—the Blackrocks, Vanguards, and State Streets—would have no problem with increasing food prices.

Then there are the contents of these ‘food™’ products, most of which now contain stuff that shouldn’t be there in the first place (e.g., ham in Norway contains high fructose corn syrup).

At the same time, so-called ‘convenience food™’ make up ever larger segments of what’s on sale, which begs the question: would future generations know how to cook? (And that’s in addition to the problematic notion of essentially radiating your ‘food™’ in a microwave oven…)

Basically, what the wealthier countries are doing is using their purchasing power combined with their political-military sway over Third World producers to secure enough cheap food to avoid queues and discontent at home.

This system, though, is reaching its limits as governments are cutting back on social spending—although let’s note, for completeness’ sake, that so-called ‘entitlements’ like pensions, social security, public health insurance, etc. are essentially trust funds/escrows, and to fund more military stuff, we’re now told to accept cuts of these programs that belie the trust (sic) placed in these systems in the first place. After all, the gov’t makes you fork over payroll taxes that are said to fund these essentially insurance schemes, and now the gov’t is taking out the money to spend it elsewhere/funnel it to Big Banks, and is telling you to expect less of your own funds. Everywhere else, this is called fraud (and then some).

Given the potential for (food) riots demanding an end to this abusive system, and mindful of how the USSR fell, the centralised managers in Brussels are almost ready to implement measures to make it in spite of proclaimed adherence to ‘our values™’:

• the Green Pass will be modified into an essentially ‘internal passport’ (Russians still have such things, by the way) for domestic mobility

• the ECB’s digital euro (CBDC) comes with serious strings attached, both in terms of surveillance by the central banksters and the ability to restrict the amount of ‘money™’ and its expiration date per person/wallet

• most EU member-states are already (technically) insolvent due to mad spending during the (fraudulent) Covid Pandemic™—Austria, for instance, which had one of the highest per-capita spending binges, is bankrupt and politicos™ are now openly discussing entering into a Greek-style ‘adjustment’ program—and the EU Commission is there to help, with more digital currency made out of thin air

And with these three steps, once combined—forged into the ‘One Ring’—shows how the Brussels/Frankfurt cabal will centralise their authority:

Using the ‘internal passport’ (Green Pass) will be made mandatory so no-one needs to carry anything but their own surveillance tool (smart™ phone).

Fortunately, for EU Borgers, that surveillance tool (smart™ phone) also doubles as a digital wallet™ that allows EU Borgers to leave their physical wallets at home.

At some point in the near future, the Brussels/Frankfurt cabal will come up with the next logical step: rationing of goods and services, but since calling this rationing would be so 20th century style and perhaps even remind the EU Borgers of, say, queues in the Soviet Bloc, that rationing will be AI-controlled and disseminated via the EU Borgers’ surveillance tool (smart™ phone), which will send you push messages about ‘new money™’ having been deposited in your digital wallet (‘universal basic income™’) and/or ‘new destinations™’ are now available (e.g., the hair-dresser).

Rationing of goods and services will also come with a social credit score, which the Brussels/Frankfurt cabal, in cahoots with the UN’s Agenda 2030, will revolve around one’s ‘carbon footprint’, all traceable via the EU Borgers’ surveillance tool (smart™ phone). Already, many new such devices come with the Agenda 2030 app pre-installed (it was launched in 2016).

All of these lofty plans are there, and they may well be implemented.

To my mind, the question is: will reality—food riots—derail this agenda before the powers-that-be are ready?

Epilogue: What To Do About Food (and Society)

I live on a small farm in the countryside, and while the weather is quite harsh (at 61 degrees north), the best alternative to living on a farmstead is—to get to know a bunch of farmers whom you can buy food from directly.

Basically, if you’re thinking about the Caribbean for a vacation, consider an few weeks on a farm: it’s great for children, and you get to know the farmer—a win-win.

There are no quick and easy, painless solutions to our predicament, by the way.

The first and hardest step is to accept that the next 20-25 years will be quite unlike the past quarter-century.

Once you’ve moved across this threshold, the rest becomes less mentally crippling (I’m not saying the going gets easier), because it’s more about doing something about the predicaments you’re facing rather than, say, getting distracted by bread and circuses.

Price controls means food queues, and if you’re in doubt if centralised management of industrial economies is a solution, read up on the history of every failed experiment in the 20th century:

• start with Germany’s WW1 economic policies, though, because Berlin’s wartime production board managed to sustain 4+ years of gruesome warfare during a massive Allied blockade; the end result was a contraction of manufacturing output as measured (ex post) in GDP by about 25%. (As an aside, that was exceeded by the measures imposed on Greece by the Brussels/Frankfurt/IMF cabal a decade ago: GDP contracted by 1/3, albeit without open warfare or a blockade).

• Germany’s WW1 command economy was the blueprint for Lenin’s Soviet Union, and while you may find this notion amusing (it’s after all the evil bourgeois imperialists whose plans Lenin and his ilk were adopting in the Worker’s Paradise™), it’s not if you’re considering the totalitarian hell-hole of Stalin’s 1930s…

• Essentially the same issues bedevilled FDR’s ‘New Deal’, which was a kind of fascist command economy with American characteristics that failed to address the roots of the Great Depression (the emergence of the Big Business/High Finance cabal in cahoots with the Federal Reserve), and the only ‘solution™’ was gearing up for WW2 from 1938 onwards by directing massive amounts of dollars towards the arms industry while introducing—rationing of consumer goods (tires, gasoline, etc.). Yes, certain liberties were retained (but not for all, if the internment of esp. Japanese-Americans is considered), but WW2 also gave rise to what Eisenhower later called ‘the military-industrial complex’ (and few ever read on to learn that academia is the second pillar as ‘the Science™’ is now dependent on gov’t grants).

At this point, I’ll cite the pertinent passages:

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Prescient, eh?

Nah, Eisenhower was describing what he oversaw: the emergence of a new kind of civilisation: highly centralising, massively funded by debt (which feeds the financiers), and collectivist.

So, what, then, could be done?

More direct relations between manufacturers and consumers would could out the (many) middlemen currently involved: truckers, retailers, marketing agencies, etc.

Producing food and stuff closer to where people live would be a good start, and it will create many opportunities for trade and small businesses in local communities.

Basically, it would signify the re-creation of live in small towns in the 1950s before the advent of megacorporations—essentially, super markets and shopping malls would need to go, and since these huge facilities ran into serious trouble during the Covid (fake) pandemic™, the most likely outcome will be a curtailment of opening hours paired with less goods in the near term.

As supply lines buckle and strain, the benefits of these big box stores in terms of availability/prices will decline and local production will come back.

It won’t happen over night, and it won’t be without many, many ‘hick-ups’. Think about what you’re good at and passionate about, and consider adopting a positive stance towards realising whatever it is you’re considering.

Stop throwing away ‘old’ things, books, or tools. Keep an eye on garage/yard sales, as many people are often giving away stuff freely to make space for a new gadget or gizmo.

If you have kids, see if you can get board games and the like, as well as other things from where you live (esp. used children’s bikes are very expensive and used very little).

Once the next lockdowns or ‘temporary restrictions’ are announced, you’ll thank me. Or not. What matters is that you do some of these things.

Finally, become more conscious of your free will and the fact that we’re all free and sovereign people. Don’t comply with ay of these orders if you don’t think they make sense (e.g., no long-distance travel during severe storms).

It’s infinitely preferable to die a free man or woman than to ‘live’ like a slave.

Remember this, for it is both everyone’s birthright and the essence of Western civilisation.