Remember when the Covid-lockdown began in March? It was so surprising–and alarming–to see so many empty grocery store shelves. Our sudden grocery-buying spree caught grocers flat-footed because of a business practice called “Just-In-Time” or “J.I.T.”<\/p>\n
This practice saves businesses money because they can avoid having a lot of inventory on hand. Instead, right before running out they order more to arrive Just-In-Time before their shelves go empty.<\/p>\n
The pandemic revealed the big problem with J.I.T.\u00a0 Focusing so heavily on cost efficiencies left grocers unable to respond to unusual disruptions–like a lockdown.<\/p>\n
Shoppers Got Caught, Too<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Grocers weren’t the only ones caught flat-footed back in March. We consumers suddenly faced empty kitchen cupboards because we had jumped onto the JIT bandwagon, too. Whenever we felt like cooking something, we just made a run to the store.<\/p>\n The Virtue of Preparedness<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>We’ve probably learned that a little preparedness is not a bad idea (something I’m sure our grandmothers would have warned us, too!)<\/p>\n The Pantry to the Rescue<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 In the kitchen, “preparedness” takes form as a pantry that is helpfully and healthfully stocked.<\/p>\n Now before yawning and moving on to the next post, consider this: When the lockdown hit, I didn’t have to panic buy because I had a solid base of staples. I just picked up a lot of fresh vegetables (which were never in low supply!) and I was set for three weeks. Would you be happy to go three weeks without tromping through the grocery aisles?!!<\/p>\n Beyond Pandemics–Everyday Time Savings!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/strong>The pandemic certainly brought the pantry’s value to light. But the pantry’s value extends far beyond being prepared for random calamities and challenges.<\/p>\n The pantry also saves a huge amount of our precious time—<\/strong><\/span> Understand the Time Sinkhole<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Every shopping trip has some built-in “time overhead.” Whether you’re shopping for 5 items or 50, you still have to:<\/p>\n Your total time overhead: 28 to 53 minutes!<\/strong><\/p>\n Who doesn’t complain about not having time to make healthy meals? Well here’s the answer: Put your pantry to work! With every shopping trip you avoid, you get rewarded with the 28 to 53 minutes which would otherwise have become wasted “sunk costs,” as they say in the business world.<\/p>\n Putting the Pantry to Work<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 The key for reducing sunk costs lies in maximizing each trip to the store.<\/p>\n Not only will you save a lot of time–you’ll be prepared for whatever hiccups might happen, from getting sick or breaking a leg to your car breaking down, severe weather, unexpected guests–or a pandemic.<\/p>\n Wild Hairs<\/span> <\/strong>You might chafe at the idea of cooking inside the boundaries of your pantry. What if you feel like making something spontaneously? Nothing about a pantry prevents that.<\/p>\n First, if your pantry is well and helpfully stocked, you’ll have plenty of interesting ingredients to make a huge variety of dishes. Secondly, having a pantry doesn’t mean you can’t stop at the store for something special–as long as you’re willing to sink 28 to 53 minutes into the outing!<\/p>\n Boring Meals? Not at all!<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>I’m always amazed at how many of my meals are sourced completely from the pantry–and they are anything but the same old thing!<\/p>\n Learn More About the Pantry at September’s Class<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Remember when the Covid-lockdown began in March? It was so surprising–and alarming–to see so many empty grocery store shelves. Our sudden grocery-buying spree caught grocers flat-footed because of a business practice called “Just-In-Time” or “J.I.T.” This practice saves businesses money because they can avoid having a lot of inventory on hand. Instead, right before running … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4433"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5414,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4433\/revisions\/5414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwhich frees us up to make healthful meals.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n
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