The detrimental effects of Hurricane Sandy are far-reaching, but can you guess all of the impacts it is having on ourselves and our neighbors here in the Bay area?  Access to perishable European foodstuffs in time for Thanksgiving, especially cheese, has been one of the most damaging effects of Hurricane Sandy to the food world.

       Most European cheese travels by boat and lands at a port in Elizabeth, New Jersey.  From there, it goes to one of several major importer/distributors all located in basically the same vicinity.  If you’ve ever had the fortune to visit Rungis just south of Paris, you’ll have a sense of the scale of the warehouse district in Elizabeth, NJ.  It’s like a city on its own, full of warehouses, FULL of cheese (except in Elizabeth, you’re uhm, definitely not just south of Paris).

       Well, Elizabeth got clobbered by Hurricane Sandy, and the follow up snow storms.  Most warehouses lost power and some even got flooded.  Now you’d think ‘don’t these places have generators?’ and they do, but they only work for so long.  ‘Aren’t those kinds of places really well insulated?’  Yes they are, and can hold cold a while especially if they’re full of cheese.  But since cheeses are living, breathing things, they generate a little bit of heat, and after a while of being unrefrigerated, and being piled on top of one another, they can begin to compost and literally melt themselves, and once that starts, it progresses at an exponential rate.   

       No one’s had it that badly from what I gather, but I spoke to one of my friends who works in one of these warehouses that got flooded to get the skinny on just how bad this is.  Now it depends on where the cheese was in the warehouse, but in many cases, they’ve only had 5% of their inventory that was still wholesome enough to sell.  Can you imagine?!  Out of a 2,000 lb pallet of cheese, one of hundreds upon thousands in a facility, having to discard all but 100 of those pounds of cheese?  Of course, lets keep this all in perspective, we’re not discussing PERSONS after all, but it is still epically tragic.  So much work, so much food, rendered utterly useless by a stroke of mother nature’s hand.   

So what now?  Well, the warehouses are slowly beginning to return to a nearly normalized state, but many still won’t be able to get cheese to the west coast until the week of Thanksgiving.  So savor that hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano, English Cheddar,  Swiss Gruyere, or wedge of French Brie for the temporarily rare and delicious commodity it is.  And look to California for some of your cheese needs too!!