Why is good food so Scarce?

[tigerchick1895]

Why is everyday food like coffe, tea and sugar so hard to find in Oceania?

[The Atheist]

Why is everyday food like coffe, tea and sugar so hard to find in Oceania?

Partly to preserve the image of war rationing, partly to create a state of want, so that people are happy with lesser-quality, but mostly because the Party can keep it scarce. It costs less money to manufacture coffee from acorns than coffee beans, so go with the acorns. Inner Party members don't miss out on anything, and what others want is irrelevant.

[The]

I believe that it helps make the illusion that there is a war going on as well as people are used to the lower quality in food so thats what the govenment gives them.

[Jack Fields]

I would also argue that it was because of the economical system. Situation in Oceania (as described in the book), was actually very similar to the situation in communist countries in the former USSR.

For example, if they needed a "clerk" responsible for the agriculture in some area, the often choose someone with a "good political ideas" (meaning pro-communism) rather than some specialist (who could be "politically unstable").
Also they wanted the people from working class to be in the higher position (without any education in the area), so in some periods you had a bunch of stupid people(but from working class) doing the managers job. So sometimes there was literally not much bread, or milk, or meat or whatever (even the every-day things that we use - e.g. razor-blades :) ), because of the bad decision of the "managers".

Also (but that I took complete from the history, not from the book), they wanted some countries in USSR to produce one "thing" and the other country to produce something different. For example in Czechoslovakia there were massive steel-producing factories (and the steel was send out to the whole USSR), but sometimes there was less food or dishes (plates and pans), because they were made elsewhere.