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Newfoundland has a hard bread shortage, but why do they eat it?

27 points by empressplay 3 days ago | 29 comments

5555624 22 minutes ago

Why not just make it yourself? It's just flour, water, and salt. It's far easier than yeast-based breads and easier than most quick breads, too. Two ingredient (self-rising flour and heavy cream) biscuits are about the only thing that's easier.

samirillian 2 minutes ago

> Proper hard bread couldn’t be home baked.

lurk2 14 minutes ago

This has nothing to do with this board's subject matter.

criddell 3 minutes ago

[delayed]

rob74 32 minutes ago

The article gives an interesting overview of the history of hard bread, but doesn't mention how Newfoundlanders eat it today. In a fish soup? With tea? Pure? Or all of the above?

bregma 55 minutes ago

Without fish and brewis Newfoundland is just... a big rock.

Simulacra 2 hours ago

Wow, this is actually interesting, I had not heard of people eating hard attack since the American Civil War. But looking at a map, it doesn't look that difficult to get to, so I'm curious why not just fly it in?

chocochunks 2 hours ago

Because no one else really eats it or makes it. AFAIK that Purity factory is the only one in Canada making it and outside of Newfoundland it's hard to find on a normal day even in the rest of Atlantic Canada. And when you do, it's the Purity version shipped over. It's very much a Newfoundland food.

charcircuit 2 hours ago

>Grocery stores across Newfoundland and Labrador have been struggling to keep hard bread in stock since a fire at the Purity factory in March put a crimp in the company’s baking operations.

Is it really that hard to raise the price to keep it in stock?

inigyou 39 minutes ago

How does that solve the problem?

I love how in economics, a shortage can be solved by increasing the price instead of by increasing the quantity. It really makes you understand that the field of economics uses stupid definitions of words.

charcircuit 27 minutes ago

If you are trying to slow down sales to the point that you are able to consistently replenish stock before the last batch sells out, raising the price will reduce the volume of hard bread being sold. At some point the volume should be low enough that it stops going out of stock.

wvbdmp 24 minutes ago

Just “having hard tack in stock” isn’t the objective to solve for, though.

I’m actually skeptical this shortage affects people too badly, since the stuff lasts forever. Probably enthusiasts have enough in their pantries to last them through a temporary factory downtime?

inigyou 19 minutes ago

Well if the goal is to avoid you out of stock, just keep one more packet in the back room and never sell it.

That clearly isn't the goal.

pjc50 2 hours ago

You know what's really oversupplied in this subthread? One sentence contrarianism.

(not that I haven't done it myself occasionally, but guys you really are not helping anyone here including yourselves)

close04 2 hours ago

Raising the price doesn't increase the supply, it just selects who can access it. Most of the people will still not get it, just for a different reason.

mhluongo 2 hours ago

A higher margin increases the incentive for people to make more, though.

wvbdmp 27 minutes ago

Probably not, right? Demand is already there. The factory is already incentivized, it’s just damaged and needed time to get back to full capacity. A contender isn’t just going to spring up because prices are temporarily high.

Even if you already had a factory that could easily be converted to this product, you’d have to factor in the switching cost, opportunity cost, shipping, marketing and regulatory stuff. This likely offsets the consumer’s willingness to pay extra during the shortage, and as soon as the original factory is back, they’re going to price you back out. They’re already operational, as per the article.

rcxdude 23 minutes ago

In the longer run, maybe, but if the factory is already working to rebuild then arguably that incentive is already met and it's more just the time it takes to get capacity back up, which is not as flexible with spending money on it as people would like.

inigyou 39 minutes ago

Would you make a hard bread factory if the price was higher? How high?

charcircuit 26 minutes ago

It doesn't increase supply, but it slows down how fast the supply sells out. This allows there to always be supply available for purchase.

card_zero 2 hours ago

That implies that everything with a price is always out of stock.

bluecheese452 2 hours ago

It implies no such thing.

card_zero 2 hours ago

The presence of a price "selects who can access it", hence there's not enough stock to give it away for free. (Sometimes deliberately.)

wvbdmp 26 minutes ago

There’s plenty of stuff you couldn’t get rid of if you gave it away for free. You seem to be ignoring demand.

watwut 2 hours ago

Wut? That makes no sense.

squigz 2 hours ago

No, it implies that everything with a price and a supply issue will likely still face that supply issue even with a higher price.

card_zero 2 hours ago

Everything with a price has a supply issue.

squigz 2 hours ago

No, it doesn't.

card_zero 2 hours ago

Oh, OK.

squigz 2 hours ago

I'm really glad we sorted this out.