> I was able to buy flour at my grocery store for first time in 2 months

IME it has also varied greatly by location. I couldn't get any for months at my store, but I later found out a different location of the same chain had it in stock routinely. Also, restaurants near me are selling flour now. Presumably they had large quantities that they just need to repackage.

My experience is similar: the ready-to-cook stuff like boneless skinless chicken breasts have been near impossible to find. The last time I went to the grocery there were huge bags full of unprocessed parts like leg quarters and half-split breasts. Whole chickens are plentiful. I'm very thankful for my good set of knives and my knife skills. I recently split a 25-lbs bag of King Arthur flour with another person because that's all that was available, the 10-lbs bags were sighted recently and even that was gone.

To support the local economy, I started buying from a farm that used to supply restaurants and chefs. That has resulted in its own kind of headache. I can put together a decent meal, but I have few ideas how to go forward with nasturtium petals, begonia leaves, edible succulents. Micro-greens are very pretty scattered over a Michelin-star plate, but looks awfully stupid on a spatchcock roast chicken.

> I was able to buy flour at my grocery store for first time in 2 months yesterady

The experience for consumer-packaged flour differs a lot by region, but it seems it was mostly about the capacity of consumer flour packaging facilities than the capacity of flour mills or wheat farmers. Similar thing with toilet paper: people were pooping at home more, so they needed consumer-packaged toilet paper, thus there was a temporary shortage of consumer-packaged toilet paper while facilities adapted to demand.

RE flour: here in Hamilton, Ontario, flour in consumer packaging was a rare find for about a week, until retail prices rose slightly (10%?) and now things are basically back to normal in terms of availability.

It is still tough to find toilet paper at retail here (Reno, Nevada), but manageable. The lack of commercially packaged TP being sold at retail or alternative market mechanisms remains one of the greate mysteries of the crisis for me. I know plenty of people who would have bought the big rolls just have something.

There was a real demand issue on TP as well- lots of people who used to only buy 1-6 roles at a time started panic buying 4x the amount.

Part of problem with retooling for consumer TP is that a lot of commercial TP is lower grade than consumers are used to at home; often barely meeting the definition of “two ply”, not soft or doped with humectants.

It is not simple to retool a commercial bulk TP supplier into a consumer TP supplier, they at least need some different inputs.

All true, but I was surprised I never saw a guy selling bulk rolls of TP in the parking lot (or I guess never heard how to buy it on the internet via eBay). I'm sure it existed somewhere, but it wasn't prominent enough to supply my brother and his roommates when they ran out.