What's About to Disappear From Grocery Stores This Fall

This isn't fixing itself by fall, and after tracking extensive data on commodity trading, tariffs, and shipping delays, I'm certain most people are unprepared. I've been watching the port congestion and other supply chain issues closely. Understanding these challenges is key for effective risk management in your household.
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THRIVALIST (freeze-dried pantry bundles — what I actually use):
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FORJARS CANNING LIDS (the lids I trust for every pressure canning project):
https://forjars.shop   Coupon Code: SUTTONS10

Drop a comment and tell me: what have YOU noticed at your grocery store lately? I read every single one. And if this video helped you, share it with someone who needs to hear it — that's how we grow this community. 

Stay calm. Stay prepared. Love you all. — SD

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is not going to fix itself by fall. There's no way. I started thinking about all of the data that I have been tracking for what feels like literally forever. The commodity data, the tariffs, the shipping slowdowns, and even at the port level. And I realized with absolute certainty how completely unprepared most people are for what the next four to five months is going to feel like at their grocery stores. So today I'm not going to talk in generalities. We're going to get right down to it. I'm going to walk you through exactly what I believe is about to disappear or and become completely unaffordable. I'm going to tell you why with actual data. Not on a fear-based, you know, level. This is not about fear, it's about information. And then we're going to talk about exactly what to do right now. I hope you stay with me because I think this one really matters. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Sutton's Days. If you're new here, my name is Lisa. We are all about pantry preparedness. We're going to jump right into this and we're going to hit it with something that I think is on a lot of people's minds, and that's beef. We're going to start with beef because it's the most dramatic example of a supply chain problem. It's literally been building for years, and it's now arriving, or you wish it was arriving at your dinner table. Because the problem is most people can't afford it anymore. The U.S. cattle herd now stands at, as of today, 86.2 million head. Now that sounds like a lot. That is the smallest the herd has been since 1951. The Truman administration, friends, 75 years ago. That is the smallest it has been. And it's not because people stopped eating beef. Actually, you know, I think beef is more popular than ever. Demand is as strong, if not more so. The problem is supply. Years of drought across the southern plains, high interest rates that made it financially impossible for ranchers to hold on to their herds. Ranchers had to make the impossible decision to sell off breeding cattle. Generations of genetics. Generations sold off in a season because they didn't have a choice. And here is a brutal reality of the cattle cycle that most people have absolutely no concept of. They do not understand at all. Even if every single rancher today in America decided to rebuild their herd, right now, literally, today, okay, a new supply would not meaningfully hit grocery store shelves until 2028 at the very earliest. And that's optimistic. That is just a biological fact. So when somebody tells you beef prices are going to come down soon, they don't understand what they're looking at. They do not have a clue. Ground beef hit over $6.70 a pound nationally as of April. And I think there's quite a few of you that will say that you've seen prices higher than that. Beef and veal prices are being reported at over 12% higher than this time last year. And the USDA is projecting another 6% increase through 2026. It's just the beginning of May. This is not temporary. This is structural. There is another layer, and I think it's really important that we understand it because we have to understand how serious this is this situation is, especially if you like eating beef. Okay. The US-Mexico border remains closed to imported cattle right now due to New World Screwworm. It's a livestock disease situation. And that makes sense. We don't want it coming in here, okay? And normally, approximately 1.2 to 1.5 million head of cattle come from Mexico into U.S. feedlots every single year. And right now that's closed. That import's not coming in. That supply is gone for now. We don't know how for how, you know, we don't know for how long diseases are hard to nail down like that. We have the smallest herd since 1951, and we've lost our primary import source. It's like the perfect storm. That's why prices aren't coming down, and that's why they're not going to come down. That's why the USDA projects they'll be elevated through at least 2027. I'm gonna go with the first projection of 2028, and that's I think being remarkably optimistic. What does this mean for you and your family? Because at the end of the day, that's what we're the most concerned about, okay? It means beef, especially ground beef, which is the most accessible cut for most households do ground beef. It's going to continue to be expensive, it's going to get more expensive. It means that this fall and winter, when food budgets are already stretched by heating costs and the holidays, beef is going to be a significant pressure point. So what do you do about it? We'll get there. But first, let me tell you what else is quietly becoming a problem. The part that most people miss when they hear the word tariff, they think, oh, prices are going to go up a little, you know, and then they shrug and they just go on about their way. Or somebody comes on here and comments stupid stuff like tariffs are not impacting anything. Okay. But here is what actually happens. Tariffs don't just raise prices, they interrupt supply. When a tariff makes it too expensive for an importer to bring in a product, they don't bring less of it. They don't just cut it back and bring less of it. Often they stop bringing it entirely. And when that happens, shelves don't go empty overnight, but they thin out, definitely thin out. You notice the brand that you like is gone. Then you notice that the category has fewer choices. And then one day you reach for something that's been there for what feels like forever, and it's just not there. That's what's already happening if you've been paying attention at all. And by fall, it's going to be significantly more pronounced. The National Retail Federation estimates that if tariffs stay at their current level, where they are right now today, as you're listening to this video, overall imports will fall by roughly 20% the second half of this year. 20% is a lot. It may not sound like it, but it's a lot. Major retailers have reportedly stopped or slowed orders from certain countries already. And there's a lag. Nobody ever thinks about that. A six to 12 week delay between what was ordered in April hits the shelves in July. It takes that long. What was canceled in April hits shelves in fall? Maybe. Do you see what I'm saying? The decisions that are affecting your fall grocery experience are already being made right now, today. So as I've been telling you, okay, don't sit around waiting on this one. Okay. Let me walk you through some specific categories that I have been watching very closely for quite some time now, because if you've been with me for a while, you've heard me talking about them for a few years at least. Number one is olive oil. I've been talking about this for literal years. The US produces about 2% of the olive oil that it consumes. 2%. We get the rest of it from Spain, Italy, and Greece, all of which now face a 20% tariff on European imports. Some mid-priced brands have are already gone from the shelves. And I think most of us have seen this, and most of us have seen the prices go up. Premium brands are up nearly 30% already. There's no domestic replacement that can fill that gap. We only produce 2%. Olive trees take years to mature. This isn't a six-month problem. Number two, can't tuna and seafood. You know, the stuff that you can buy today and it lasts on your shelves, you know, over three years, if you look at the dates on it. A surprising amount of our cantuna comes from Thailand and the Philippines, both of which are facing significant tariffs. We're already seeing reduced variety on the shelves, fewer brands, fewer options. And cantuna is a prepper staple, if you will, you know, a budget staple because it's cheap protein. This is the one that you typically want to have in your pantry in depth. Number three is coffee, which you know is near and dear to my heart and my attitude. We import about 80% of our roasted coffee to the US. Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, all affected by the tariffs. And here's the double hit, because a single hit's just not good enough. Even where some tariffs were rolled back last year, the global coffee crop has been poor due to weather. Yeah. So, hey, we're gonna nail you with tariffs. And even though we rain it in just a teeny tiny bit, the gods are gonna say, wham, take that one. The USDA is projecting non-alcoholic beverages, which coffee drives will increase another 5.2% in 2026. Raise your hand if your coffee practically doubled over the last year. Yep, I know. Your morning cup is gonna get more expensive, period. Unless you do a little stocking up. We import about 80% of our roasted coffee. Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, all affected by tariffs, every one of them. Number four, garlic and spices. China grows over 80% of the world's garlic. Did you know that? I didn't know that. I thought I did because I planted 600 bulbs last fall. Tariffs on Chinese goods hit 145% at their peak. Even where those have been partially adjusted, there's genuine instability in the garlic supply. I've seen reports of garlic bulbs selling out within hours in some stores. Spices from Vietnam and India, black pepper, turmeric, all of it. I mean literally all of it, are facing 30 to 46% tariff rates. These are pantry staples that I want you to have in depth. It doesn't take that much to stock up on them, but you want to do it now before it gets much worse. Number five is fresh produce. I know there's a bunch of you that are being impacted by this because I know I'm seeing it. Mexico provides about 70% of our fresh vegetables and over half of our fresh fruit. Yep. Avocados, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and berries, my friends. The majority of what's in your produce section has at some point been touched by a Mexican farm or a Mexican supply chain. Yes, 17% tariff now in place. Fresh tomato prices, you've seen them because you've talked about them in the comment section, have been reported up 40 to 50 percent in some markets. Cherry tomatoes, have you seen the prices of those lately? Roma tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, every single one of them has been affected. And here's why this matters for fall specifically. Fresh produce prices are seasonal. They're always seasonal. They spike in late summer and fall as domestic growing seasons end in most of the country. And that's when we shift back to imports. Those tomatoes in your grocery store in February, honey, they didn't come from anywhere around here. They came from Mexico. On top of the tariff pressure, the seasonal shift is going to hit harder than usual. So if you normally buy your tomatoes in order to can them or buy your tomato products commercially canned, do you think you should wait until fall? Now I want to talk about something that's not disappearing, but it is very much changing, and you need to pay attention to it. I want to be really honest with you, I'm not here to scare you. That's never my intention. Okay, I'm here to help you be prepared. And there's nuance here. There really is. Some of these tariffs have been adjusted, they've been paused or partially rolled back. Some items got exemptions, okay? The situation is excessively fluid. I mean, you can get whiplash trying to keep track of all of this. What I'm telling you is not that the shelves are going to be empty. You know, that's that's not what I'm saying. The combination of a structural beef shortage, which is not going to rectify itself until sometime, maybe the earliest 2028, tariff-driven supply disruptions across multiple import categories, I mean a lot, and normal seasonal price increases in the fall and winter. It's normal for the price to increase, you know. That three-way collision is what I want you to be prepared for because it is coming. You will still be able to buy groceries, but the prices are going to be higher. You're going to feel it. Hard. I don't want you to feel any of that pressure, which is why I'm telling you that's why we do what we do. Pantry preparedness, my friends. One of the things that I started doing when this became very, very clear to me was leaning harder into my freeze-dried pantry. It has taken me over five years to build up a pretty decent freeze-dried pantry. Okay. I always call it my my retirement plan, mine and my husband's retirement plan, because it is my guarantee that I will be able to feed us real, honest to goodness, healthy food ingredients where I can make my own dishes in the future when things are crazy. Like, you know, this year. Because here's the thing freeze-dried food is completely insulated from these supply pressures. Completely. It's already preserved, it's already sitting on my shelf, it's already bought and paid for. And best yet, it's shelf stable for 25 years. It does not care what is happening in the port of Los Angeles. And that is why I want to mention Thrivalist. Okay. Thrivalist is a company that I am now working with and I absolutely adore, quite honestly. They have proven to me and to some of you that their quality, their standards, their customer service are all absolutely outstanding. They are fairly new. You know, they're not brand new, but they're fairly new to this quantity of marketing. And so to the extent where they thought they bought six months worth of, you know, meat and it sold out in like a month. So they are now working to fix that issue. How and it's coming back. I mean, I think the chicken is already in. So they did not understand how serious we are about stocking up and that supply. And so now they know. And they are offering some really great deals. I will put a link in the description box below the video and in a pinned comment that will take you right to this month's bundle special. But I will tell you that they got egg crystals. They have egg crystals now, and I am super excited about this. And you know, a good chunk of my budget's going to go towards that this month. So if you want to check that out, my link is where I told you. And if you want me to be your connector, which of course you know I'm always very happy to do, you will see my name across the top of the website when you click on it. And if you have any questions at all, I would be happy to help you. You can absolutely email me or leave me a comment and I'll get back to you. If you have been on the fence now, literally right now, with everything that I just told you, is the time to just do it. Now we know the problem. So you know me, I'm all about solutions. What are we going to do to safeguard our houses, to safeguard our families, to give ourselves that insurance as we move forward? Number one, audit your protein situation. I need you to be painfully honest with yourself. Put down what you actually have freezer, fridge, jars, everything, not what you wish you had. Okay? You need to know what you have in order to be able to determine what you're gonna get. Then I want you to make a decision. This one's gonna be a little harder, possibly. Given that beef is going to be well over $6 a pound through at least all of 2027 by every forecast that I can find. What is your strategy? Because you need a strategy. For most of you, I think it's a combination of three things. Number one, buy and can your own beef now while you can still shop for price. A 10-pound chub of ground beef, when it goes on sale, that goes into the canner will last you literally for years. Shelf stable, absolutely shelf stable, and it will last you for years. Secondly, diversify your proteins. This is where you're going to add in pork and poultry because these are two of the more affordable proteins that are out there. Now, even those are projected to go up a little bit. They are saying poultry by 0.7% projected and pork by 0.4% projected in this calendar year, 2026. These are your value add proteins. They really are. Now, if you like beef, I love beef, okay, but I also like pork and I also like chicken. We started making our anything we do with ground beef, we now do a 50-50 with ground pork and ground beef. It stretches your ground beef and it gives you a really good quality item, whatever it is that you're cooking, burgers or pasta dishes, or you know, whatever the case is. Definitely, if you are canning your own, you're going to save a lot more money and it's going to make itself stable for you, which means that you can stock up now for literal years. Okay. Your ugly chicken, you know, for those of you that are new, your your raw-packed or your hot-packed chicken, whichever one, if you can it safely, it will literally last you years. Same as pork, same as beef. If you can get those sale prices now, put it in jars according to the National Center for Home Food Preservation. It's an ingredient and it will last on your shelf. And that is your beans, your legumes, you know. If you don't eat beans today, it might be a good time to start to learn to cook with them because they're absolutely enjoyable. And the more that you are used to eating them, the less that they will impact your digestive system. Don't start with eating a pound of beans. Eat a quarter cup, build it up to whatever you want, you know, and it will impact your system less. That fiber is highly necessary. And if you're eating all of that processed food, trust me, you need the fiber. So definitely they're shelf stable, they're nutritious, they're affordable like nothing else out there. If you eat them, make sure you have them. While we're talking about canning really quickly, I think that it's a great time for me to say that you should check out 4Jars, 4Jars.shop. Link will be in the description box and the pinned comment. If you use the code SUTENTES10, you get 10% off. These are the the only lids that I have been using since 2020. This company was there for us when every other company said, nah, we're not gonna help. Sorry, see you later bye. Or we got a bunch of really lousy quality lids. These are great quality lids with an amazing seal rate. I mean, nobody wants to do all that work and have the jars not seal. It's a pain in the hoosie wits, you know? So I have been using them for years now and absolutely stand behind them. They have the best customer service, the best lids, and a fantastic price point. And here's something I really want you to consider. If you are planning on canning anything this spring, this summer, this fall, and I really hope that you are, don't wait. Stock up on your lids now. Supply on canning lids has been going up and down and up and down. Availability, yes, availability no. It's an issue. Okay. So get ahead of it. Make sure that you've got enough. I always I mean, literally always have no less than a couple years worth of canning lids waiting for me to use because I don't ever want to be caught off guard like I was in 2020. Okay, number two, build your shelf stable pantry in the specific categories that are under pressure. Focus on those ones because that's where it's going to be the most impactful. Olive oil, buy two to four bottles of your preferred brand now. Price is only going to go up. I mean, that's the only way it can go. Canned tuna and canned fish, absolutely. Build to at least a month's supply. If you are serious about your coffee drinking, I make sure that I have enough coffee. I am super stocked. Garlic and spices is another pressure point. Dried garlic, garlic powder, whole peppercorns. Stock them deep. Okay. If you order bulk, like through Azure Standard, again, links down below. If you order bulk through Azure Standard, bring them in. Vacuum seal them in jars, vacuum seal them in mylar. Put them up. You're good. You are really good. If you just leave them sitting around, yes, they'll go stale. But if you vacuum seal them and put cool, dark, and dry as you can get, then you are buffered against the increase and the unavailability that is going to be coming our way very shortly. Canned and processed tomatoes. I am not kidding. You all alerted me to this. You all are the ones that had me do the deep dive specifically on tomatoes. Go get them. Typically, I wait until fall, and what I don't produce in my garden, I will then stock up with commercially canned. I'm I'm hedging my bets. Even if I have the best garden I've ever had in my life, tomato-wise, I want to make sure that I have enough tomato products. It is a staple in almost everybody's diets. So your crushed tomatoes, your canned tomatoes, your salsas, your you know, rotel, that kind of stuff, all of that stuff, anything made with tomatoes, is going to be exponentially more expensive. Stock up on it now because the prices that you're paying per can or container now are going to be much higher in the fall. Canned beans and legumes. I didn't speak specifically about this, but you know, every variety that you eat is something that you can stock up on. These are literally your protection backup. Something for my home canners. Make your canning calendar now. Sit down with your calendar and a notepad and make your calendar now. Here's the mistake I see people making every single year without fail. They wait until produce is at its peak, late July into August, and then they scramble like crazy, trying to get it all done at once. I've done it, I've been there. It's a heck of a time. You know, it really is trying to get all of that taken care of. So you want to sit down and you want to figure out what it is that you want to put up when it comes in and set yourself up a plan. Yes, things happen, things change. I get it, okay. But if you can look ahead of time and go, oh, I probably shouldn't plan to do something that week because it's going to be coming in then, and I'm going to be up to my eyeballs and canning jars, which takes precedence over pretty much anything else that you would have planned to be doing, except for work. So this is going to be generality, and I absolutely get that. I cannot figure it out for the entire country, okay? But for May and June, strawberries, chicken, ground beef, beans, these are cheap and available right now. So you want to look at getting those into jars, okay? July and early August is your tomatoes, your peppers, your salsa, your green beans, your corn. This is your heavy season. This is the season where we kind of look at our canner and go, do I really want to do that? Yes, you do, because it is a hundred times better than the stuff that you buy at the store. Okay. Late August through September is your applesauce, your apple butter, your soups, your stews. You are literally building for winter. And so that's your canning calendar right there. Now figure out how much you have to can, how much you want to can, how much you are going to enjoy eating it all winter long. If you literally follow that calendar, by the time October arrives, you're looking at grocery store prices with your eyebrows raised. I mean, painfully so. You will have a pantry that insulates your family from almost all of it. Just by planning that out, being on your game and making sure that you get it done. That's always been the goal. Now, I want to close with something that I think is important. Because I know some of you are going to watch this and feel anxiety. And that's not my intention. This is, I want you to implement that plan and be safe while all of the people who bury their heads in the sand are trying to figure out what they're going to do. Take care of you and yours. Do not brag about it. Do not post pictures of it on your Facebook account. Do not try to convince other people around you that they should be doing exactly what you're doing. If you've mentioned it once and they've blown you off, leave it alone. Because if things get really bad, you do not want to become a target. It's that simple. Cats. But here's what's also very real, okay? You're watching this video. You are thinking about this. You are building a pantry. Or you're about to, okay? And that's huge. That is absolutely huge. That puts you in a completely different category than about 90% of everybody else. So if you do have to go into a grocery store in October, you're gonna walk in knowing that you've got this covered. That you are not going to be taken out by grocery prices. So don't panic. That is never the intent of this, okay? And do not go out and buy 10 years worth of food because you're gonna get the wrong stuff. I guarantee it. You don't build a pantry overnight. You never do it properly if you do. And don't go get those carb laden, sodium laden meals in a bucket. They're gross and they will take you out. They'll kill you. They're just they're not good, okay? Just take one step. Go to your pantry right now and write down what you're low on. Write down what meats you have. Do the things that I've outlined in the video. Focus on the areas that I've outlined in the video and say, do I have enough to get through a year or two? And then a little bit at a time, get a little bit more. We have four to five months to insulate ourselves against the worst of it. That's something you can do today. One step at a time. That's how we do this. Okay, everybody, that's what I've got for you today. Be sure to check out the pinned comment down below or the description box underneath this video. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. You can either leave a comment or you can send me an email. I'm normally pretty good on the comments, but I can get behind when life happens because life has been happening a lot lately. Tell me what's one thing, one thing that surprised you from this today. I really try to read every single comment, and those conversations genuinely help me. They very much help me figure out what to talk about next, like the tomatoes did. Remember, all of the links are down below. Also, until next time, everybody, be safe. Keep stacking it to the rafters, my friends.