Where are all the jars?

My Canning Cellar

Where are all the jars?

In 1975, William C Hannah of the Ball corporation was called to testify before the Subcommittee on Commodities and Services of the Small Business Committee of the US House of Representatives. He was asked to explain the company’s response to a big surge in home canning equipment. Congress was alerted to this by consumer complaints. The economic recession of the mid-1970s did much like the pandemic of 2020 by causing many more Americans to want to grow and preserve their own food. In that year, 1974, it’s estimated that as many as 26 millions Americans were canning their own food. This led to material shortages which led to canning equipment being hard to find. Mr. Hannah said that while the Ball Corporation’s sales in its first quarter of 1973 was $166,000, by the first quarter of 1974 it had reached 5,750,000.00 Because demand exceeded supplies, folks started to hoard canning supplies and the store shelves were empty. After days of hearings in 1975 & 1976, the Subcommittee on Commodities and Services gave its conclusion: “the shortage of home canning equipment was the result of normal market phenomena: exaggerated demand , which the manufacturers were unprepared to supply, partly because they failed to accurately predict it, and partly because of a shortage of raw materials the previous year. The shortage was not a result of anticompetitive behavior by the manufacturers.”The market had stabilized by 1976 and home canners could give a collective sigh of relief. Covid-19 brought the same result in lack of supplies due to more folks being home, being bored, or like myself, being home and being bored and not wanting to go to the supermarket any more than absolutely necessary. August 2020 brought the Ball jar sales up by 600 percent. That huge spike wiped out their stock. According to the April 13, 2021 issue of The Insider, out of Utah, on its website Quote ‘Retailers/distributors of the traditional Ball/Kerr brand products have informed consumers that they have not been given any clear timelines from the Newell Corporation as to when manufacturing orders would be fulfilled, due to smaller production lines still in place due to COVID. A recent conversation with a representative from the Newell Corporation (manufacturer of Ball, Kerr, and Golden Harvest canning products) indicates they are hoping for new shipments to go out toward the end of March 2021, but in limited quantities, and production will continue through the summer of 2021.’ According to not only my own research but also most people on Facebook canning groups, while jars are starting to make a comeback appearance at some stores in some states and territories, the traditional flat lids packaged without the rings are slower to show up, and when they do they are quite often bought up by the case load by any one person, although some do say they buy them to share with family and friends. I know I am grateful that my sister bought me some flat lids months ago when she found them. Canners have also been scarce, some folks reporting that they are now receiving canners that were ordered in late 2020. As of this date, the All American Canner website states “Attention: Due to remarkably high demand orders for All American Pressure Canners (910, 915, 921, 925, 930 & 941) will not ship until September, 2021.” This is the reason I recently purchased a Presto electric canner…I want to be able to can outside on my porch this summer to keep the heat out of the house, and I was worried this item would also be sold out and delayed. I am now at the point where I don’t need to be obsessive about jars and lids, and can only assume that with the hopeful wind-down of the pandemic that there will be a wind up of canning equipment production. I now have enough canners, some new and some full jars of food, and my wish is that everyone who wants to can their own food is able to do so safely and economically.