The free-gratis supply of bread; as a daily life-preserving staple; to a portion of the population doesn't appear to match the spirit of "more stuff faster".

Surely basic food supply is "the bare minimum of stuff" and the rate is fixed to 'each day' (and the delivery to grain stores is 'each harvest in the supplying region'? Yes, it's more as populations grow and centralise, but that appears to be occurring the context of the question, no?

my point was not about the existence of a bread ration it was about the drive for ever bigger boats to haul ever more capacity.