The real reason grocery stores are running out of whipped cream this Christmas | Hacker News Reader

The real reason grocery stores are running out of whipped cream this Christmas

washingtonpost.com

25 pointswalterbell26 comments

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This almost sounds like a warning about a too centralised manufacturing process across the food industry.

> “This story is a metaphor for the vulnerability of the entire food system,” said Daniel Block

However it seems to some what contradict it self:

> consumers will still be able to get whipped cream this season if they’re willing to compromise or look around

> There will also be no impact on non-aerosol whipped cream products

I am ok with the food industries resilience being across brands or even category (i.e. aerosol v non-aerosol).

I thought the reason was going to be that new pie face game. http://www.hasbro.com/en-gb/product/pie-face-game:1AB12F8D-5...

"Neither Kraft, which makes Cool Whip, nor Saputo, which sells whipped cream under the Land O’Lakes label, responded to questions about whether they too would see shortages."

Would Cool Whip be affected by this? Cool Whip ain't typically distributed in a spray can, last I checked; does it still use nitrous oxide as a preservative?

I doubt that frozen corn-syrup-in-a-tub would suffer from a lack of NO2.

Pedantry: NO₂ is nitrogen dioxide; nitrous oxide is N₂O.

And yeah, Cool Whip is barely a dairy product, and doesn't require propellant. So no N₂O involved.

I buy heavy cream from http://www.snowvillecreamery.com/ and whip my own. So easy and much more tasty. Ever see people at a concert selling balloons? Those are filled with nitrous oxide. Wonder how this will affect them?

I actually never have, and I regularly attend. That's a thing, I take it?

It's certainly a thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfSqqs5SqZ0

It depends very much on what sort of concerts you attend.

My experience was after a Primus show. I had to ask someone why they were selling balloons.

I presume you mean illegal nitrous oxide in the balloons? I would assume those come from diverted medical supply, and the article said medical supply is served first.

> I would assume those come from diverted medical supply

Not necessarily. A lot of head shops in Berkeley sell capsules full of nitrous, if you want to make your own whipped cream.

https://www.amazon.com/Cafe-Creme-Nitrous-Whipped-Chargers/d.... They look like C02 cartridges for airguns.

Coincidentally, the same stores sell balloons and devices (crackers) for releasing the nitrous from the cartridges.

Manufacturing cream + powdered sugar + mixer on high = much yum!

Its always interesting to learn that the 'one thing' everyone uses is vulnerable (like the expoxy that goes into IC packages[1]). Given its pretty easy to make Nitrous Oxide out of Ammonium Nitrate[2] why not make it on site?

[1] From 1993 - https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19930819&id=...

[2] http://chemistry.about.com/od/makechemicalsyourself/ss/How-T...

Seems like a non-issue. Whipping cream by hand takes less than ten minutes and it's quite good. It's not going to be as fluffy and light as the stuff with nitrous oxide, but for topping I think that's not the point.

"Quite good"? LOL

From a can it's always UHT so tastes, for want of a better word, industrial. Though I'd just call it horrible and would be offended if served it. Let's be clear, no one is going to mistake it for real cream.

Real whipping cream and a couple of mins with balloon whisk is the only way to go.

What's UHT? The canned stuff I get is real cream.

He's referring to "ultra-high temperature" pasteurized creams. I figure, from what he's saying, that this type of cream is required for the nitrous oxide process.

Honestly I prefer the nitrous whipped creams, hand-whipped heavy/whipping cream is second for me. Alex seems to think that flavour is universal, and that all the people who like other flavours than him are plants from the food and beverage industry.

I think you need the UHT pasteurization for the long life that a can of whipped cream is expected to last for.

Given the speed with which one can whip heavy cream, I have a hard time seeing the use of canned stuff. Whipping your own gives you a container and a couple of blender paddles to clean, and that apart takes maybe a minute more. I have to think that it tastes a lot better, too.

(I should add that before I met my wife, it would never have occurred to me to do this. On the other hand, I'm not sure I ever bought the canned stuff, either.)

Buying a container of whipped cream once a year vs owning a blender.

People own blender for much more than just making whipped cream.

The total cost of ownership of a blender is more than the annual outsourcing of whipped cream preparation.

If your assertion of people own blenders were true, there would be no whipped cream shortage, unless there is widespread ignorance amongst cream whipping equipment owners of the possibility of satisfying their demand with the means of producton in their possession.

Warning: low flying propositional logic. It's something that is commonly taught to law and philosophy students, not only mathematicians.

> If your assertion of people own blenders were true, there would be no whipped cream shortage [...]

Let's take it from here. My assertion was that people own blenders for more than just whipped cream. In other words, I claim that people use blenders also for other things.

Given the article's claim that there is "whipped cream shortage" and how implication ("if..then..") works, you basically say that my assertion is invalid, meaning that people only use blenders for whipped cream.

Now go back and rethink what your stance is and how to convey it, because you surely didn't mean that.

No and I knew it was flawed when I was typing it. I ran out of the will to fix it.

I am deeply suspicious of your cost-of-ownership claim. I own a small hand blender that cost next to nothing and I forget I own it until eggnog season, whereupon I use it to beat literally gallons of cream.

Perceived TCO then.

My point being is that plenty of people don't want to own a blender and obviously are happy paying to outsource their whipped cream requirements.

You could always just use a bowl and a whisk - or even a fork if you're really a minimalist. Made a batch of bourbon vanilla whipped cream last night.

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