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Photo by Steve Johnson Ashland Community Food Store shoppers Bill Hicks, left, and Annie Roberts buy dried foods from the store's bulk bins Monday. The store and others that sell nonperishables have seen an increase in shoppers worried about interruptions in food supplies brought on by the millennium bug. Y2K fears gobble bulk foods Around the valley, more people stockpile food in case of trouble By JOHN DARLING The millennium bug has a big appetite, grocery store workers have found. With nine months until the end of 1999, demand for storable food and supplies is up at businesses with bulk items to sell. The demand for nonperishables has passed the $1,000-a-day mark at Ashland Community Food Store and prompted the store to rent warehouse space in Medford, where workers dispense bulk foods two days a week. Food 4 Less in Medford reports case goods buying is up 10 to 15 percent over a year ago. Because of customer requests, said manager Mike Hammers, the store plans a weeklong parking lot sale of case goods in June. At Cantwell's Market in Ashland, owner Tom Cantwell sells bulk foods wholesale through a buying club. He said club business has doubled in the past three to four months. And Shop 'n' Kart in Ashland reports a big upswing, with customers regularly writing $1,000 and $1,500 checks for 25- and 50-pound bags of pasta, flour, sugar, grains and oats. The Year 2000 bug is brought on by the fact that most computers read only the last two digits of a year. On Jan. 1, 2000, computer systems that haven't been updated could think it's 1900 and crash. As a result, forecasters have predicted everything from minor glitches to a threat to civilization. More people are starting to prepare for trouble. "It's been pretty amazing," said Annie Hoy, Community Food Store outreach director. "People are very emotional about this. There's a lot of fear. Only a short while ago, Y2K buying was done in small amounts and by regular customers," she said, "but now we see many new faces and people making huge orders, some for groups of families." The store is getting five to 20 bulk orders a week from buyers who say they're worried about Year 2000 issues, Hoy said. About a quarter of bulk customers are new faces to the store, she said, and they come from places like Siskiyou and Josephine counties. About $9,000 a month is spent through a new Y2K bulk buying program, said store General Manager Marta Boyett, and at least that much is spent over the counter and in the bulk-ordering program the store always has offered. The store gave up trying to store Y2K orders on-site and leased warehouse space from a food supplier in West Medford. It also offers Y2K customer packets containing nutritional data and a food checklist and order form, both on paper and at the store's Web site: www.acfs.org/y2kinfo.htm The store also is serving as consultant to other food co-ops in Washington and California, fielding questions from store workers who are just beginning their Y2K efforts. "We advocate prudent preparedness, with a three-month food supply, which is a good thing anytime because of natural disasters," Hoy said. "However, we are skating a fine line between wanting to inform and not wanting to scare people." The store's suppliers say they're all Y2K-compliant but confess they don't know how compliant their suppliers are, she added. "Some have said they will get the food here by horse or bike if they have to," she said. The food store is having trouble keeping shelves filled with its basic Y2K tool kit, which includes a hand-cranked AM-FM shortwave radio, flashlight and grain mill, candles, a water pump and large water jugs and plastic buckets. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA