Grocery shortages where you live?

RyanStl

The only thing we couldn't find was Hawaiian King rolls for our new years party anywhere and Walmart ran out of cream of mushroom right before Thanksgiving.  Everything else I buy has been available.

paqman

danhoo said:

Rice Krispy shortage nationwide. None on shelves by me. 

That’s because of a strike (Kelogg’s employees I think), same here

lousubcap

There are a few things that may run low one week but be back the next.  Any Monday usually is the lowest inventory will be for the week based on standard truck delivery schedules.  

fishlessman

grocery stores here are fuller than they have ever been right now with more new products that ive never seen before. the liquor barns had some empty shelves but look to be refilling them.made the mistake of grocery shopping before the snowmagedon bomb cyclone last week, 2-4 inches snow predicted, no shortage of people.  made cheese cake, philadelphia was lying. wasup maybe a quarter a pound, big whoop. talked to an old friend about heating prices, he told the oil company where to go, dorchester by the sea is going to be cold this year and he couldnt care less if he had heat or not

TideEggHead

Seems to be random around here, one day they are out of something and 4 days later they have it. Our publix was completely out of sausage over the weekend but had it full stock today. Pasta sauce, toilet paper, chicken stock, and most of the beef cuts were all gone today.

Lowcountrygamecock

Ground sausage is a struggle here still for some reason.  Some weeks they have it, some they don't.
Oh and I'm a firm believer that Philadelphia tried to inflate sales with a marketing/scare campaign.  Must have worked because a lot of people around us were talking about it.  We never had issues finding cream cheese but I did hear of people panic buying and hoarding it.  

Ozzie_Isaac

Breadlines

ColbyLang

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Breadlines

I got that

fishlessman

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Breadlines

not as long as a covid test line or the lines we have been having at the liquor store

jtcBoynton

Around here there are routine holes in the shelves at the grocery, but one specific brand of a specific item at a time.  Cream cheese was the last item that got short across all brands.  Haven't felt like the family is going to starve.  Canned cat food seems to be the thing that consistently has the most empty shelf space. 

Lowcountrygamecock

jtcBoynton said:

Around here there are routine holes in the shelves at the grocery, but one specific brand of a specific item at a time.  Cream cheese was the last item that got short across all brands.  Haven't felt like the family is going to starve.  Canned cat food seems to be the thing that consistently has the most empty shelf space. 

Sounds like you could solve two problems at once by throwing the cat on the BGE. Just kidding. Except that somebody out there has probably done it and will tell you it tastes like chicken. 

Tspud1

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Breadlines

But it shouldnt matter, the sign above them says extra beer

Battleborn

Went to Kroger for the first time, in person, this morning. Ground beef was slim, chicken was slimmer. All the other meat was fine. Produce was well stocked. Didn’t notice much else low. 

JohnInCarolina

Lowcountrygamecock said:

jtcBoynton said:

Around here there are routine holes in the shelves at the grocery, but one specific brand of a specific item at a time.  Cream cheese was the last item that got short across all brands.  Haven't felt like the family is going to starve.  Canned cat food seems to be the thing that consistently has the most empty shelf space. 

Sounds like you could solve two problems at once by throwing the cat on the BGE. Just kidding. Except that somebody out there has probably done it and will tell you it tastes like chicken. 

You know what it doesn’t taste like?  Dog.






j/k

Botch

JohnInCarolina said:

Lowcountrygamecock said:
Sounds like you could solve two problems at once by throwing the cat on the BGE. Just kidding. Except that somebody out there has probably done it and will tell you it tastes like chicken. 

You know what it doesn’t taste like?  Dog.






j/k

I was able to purchase a cookbook only published in China, but was translated into English.  Its called "How to Wok your Dog".  

Ozzie_Isaac

Botch said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Lowcountrygamecock said:
Sounds like you could solve two problems at once by throwing the cat on the BGE. Just kidding. Except that somebody out there has probably done it and will tell you it tastes like chicken. 

You know what it doesn’t taste like?  Dog.






j/k

I was able to purchase a cookbook only published in China, but was translated into English.  Its called "How to Wok your Dog".  

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Legume

I have no idea if there are shortages.  We order online and get curbside pickup.  They ALWAYS substitute some items which we’ve found has more to do with how hard the picker looks vs what they actually have.  Fortunately we can accept or reject substitutions online before we go or when we pick up.

Ozzie_Isaac

Legume said:

I have no idea if there are shortages.  We order online and get curbside pickup.  They ALWAYS substitute some items which we’ve found has more to do with how hard the picker looks vs what they actually have.  Fortunately we can accept or reject substitutions online before we go or when we pick up.

My first online order was my last online order.  The produce chosen was terrible, they substituted probably 30% without telling us, and the groceries where just tossed in the drivers trunk and it looks like he moonlighted as a bootlegger running from the cops.

Legume

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Legume said:

I have no idea if there are shortages.  We order online and get curbside pickup.  They ALWAYS substitute some items which we’ve found has more to do with how hard the picker looks vs what they actually have.  Fortunately we can accept or reject substitutions online before we go or when we pick up.

My first online order was my last online order.  The produce chosen was terrible, they substituted probably 30% without telling us, and the groceries where just tossed in the drivers trunk and it looks like he moonlighted as a bootlegger running from the cops.

We order through the store and do curbside, we don’t use one of those services.  It sucked 18 months ago, but they’ve got it dialed in now.  We have shifted how we order produce and we do get a fair bit in person from Trader Joe’s, we’ll go into that store.  We also do get some produce from Costco.  TJs and Costco are the only two stores we go into regularly.  Safety at Whole Foods also seems to be managed better than the local Kroger/Safeway stores, like TJs.

JohnInCarolina

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Legume said:

I have no idea if there are shortages.  We order online and get curbside pickup.  They ALWAYS substitute some items which we’ve found has more to do with how hard the picker looks vs what they actually have.  Fortunately we can accept or reject substitutions online before we go or when we pick up.

My first online order was my last online order.  The produce chosen was terrible, they substituted probably 30% without telling us, and the groceries where just tossed in the drivers trunk and it looks like he moonlighted as a bootlegger running from the cops.

Do you think the folks who stocked you had once met you in person, by any chance?

Ozzie_Isaac

JohnInCarolina said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Legume said:

I have no idea if there are shortages.  We order online and get curbside pickup.  They ALWAYS substitute some items which we’ve found has more to do with how hard the picker looks vs what they actually have.  Fortunately we can accept or reject substitutions online before we go or when we pick up.

My first online order was my last online order.  The produce chosen was terrible, they substituted probably 30% without telling us, and the groceries where just tossed in the drivers trunk and it looks like he moonlighted as a bootlegger running from the cops.

Do you think the folks who stocked you had once met you in person, by any chance?

Was probably my very demanding notes I left in the "special request" box of my order, very clearly telling them how to do their job.

JohnInCarolina

Ozzie_Isaac said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Legume said:

I have no idea if there are shortages.  We order online and get curbside pickup.  They ALWAYS substitute some items which we’ve found has more to do with how hard the picker looks vs what they actually have.  Fortunately we can accept or reject substitutions online before we go or when we pick up.

My first online order was my last online order.  The produce chosen was terrible, they substituted probably 30% without telling us, and the groceries where just tossed in the drivers trunk and it looks like he moonlighted as a bootlegger running from the cops.

Do you think the folks who stocked you had once met you in person, by any chance?

Was probably my very demanding notes I left in the "special request" box of my order, very clearly telling them how to do their job.

caliking

Legume said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Legume said:

I have no idea if there are shortages.  We order online and get curbside pickup.  They ALWAYS substitute some items which we’ve found has more to do with how hard the picker looks vs what they actually have.  Fortunately we can accept or reject substitutions online before we go or when we pick up.

My first online order was my last online order.  The produce chosen was terrible, they substituted probably 30% without telling us, and the groceries where just tossed in the drivers trunk and it looks like he moonlighted as a bootlegger running from the cops.

We order through the store and do curbside, we don’t use one of those services.  It sucked 18 months ago, but they’ve got it dialed in now.  We have shifted how we order produce and we do get a fair bit in person from Trader Joe’s, we’ll go into that store.  We also do get some produce from Costco.  TJs and Costco are the only two stores we go into regularly.  Safety at Whole Foods also seems to be managed better than the local Kroger/Safeway stores, like TJs.

We've been Instacart customers since 2019, and love it. 

 You can do things like run orders from Costco, the Middle Eastern store, the Asian store, HEB simultaneously. Shoppers have typically been pretty damn good, about chatting in real-time/sending pics of the available replacement(s), if they can't find something. I don't let them pick up meats for us, because they're not as CDO as I am. I go in to the grocery store about once monthly. Twice, at the most. 

There are some misses, now and then. Customer service is like Amazon - they will promptly refund, or give you some kind of credit, if there is a problem. We've been quite satisfied with it. 

Botch

Timely article on WaPo today:
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/01/11/grocery-store-empty-shelves-again/

lousubcap

Paywall for the win.  Not a subscriber.  FYI-

Langner91

I forgot to thaw something for supper, and I needed a few things. So, I tried to put a Wal-Mart pick-up order in.  Nothing on my list, except French Onion Dip and eggs, were "available" in the app.  

So, I stopped on my way home figuring I could find something to fix for a quick grilled meal since it was nice out. 

Meat cases were pretty empty. For chicken, they only had drumsticks and thighs.  Very little ground beef, except the 90-10.  Quite a bit of pork. 

The chip aisle, cracker aisle, and bread aisle looked like there was a blizzard coming within hours.  I don't think I have ever seen it that bad. 

Plenty of eggs and dairy items.  Plenty of booze.  No freaking distilled water.  WTF news did I miss about distilled water?

I ate chicken thighs and bagged salad for supper, which is fine.  I certainly wasn't going to starve.  There were plenty of options, just not what I am used to seeing at the store.

I will live, but it was very noticeable.

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap said:

Paywall for the win.  Not a subscriber.  FYI-

The article highlights four main reasons for empty shelves in various spots:

1) omicron
2) winter weather 
3) supply chain issues
4) more people eating at home, getting fat

We may all have to chip in to get you a sub to the WaPo, Frank!

Botch

lousubcap said:

Paywall for the win.  Not a subscriber.  FYI-

Thanks for letting me know, Cap'n.  I am a subscriber, and some of the articles can be posted freely and others can't; I still haven't figured out how to tell.  

Legume

JohnInCarolina said:

lousubcap said:

Paywall for the win.  Not a subscriber.  FYI-

The article highlights four main reasons for empty shelves in various spots:

1) omicron
2) winter weather 
3) supply chain issues
4) more people eating at home, getting fat

We may all have to chip in to get you a sub to the WaPo, Frank!

Wait, it didn’t mention the president?

any explanation on why so many people read ‘omicron’ but say ‘omnicrom’ ?

Botch

Test, test:
 

Four reasons you’re seeing empty grocery store shelves

The omicron surge, extreme weather and record December sales are among the reasons that toilet paper aisle is looking shaky again

It’s barely 2022 and already social media is swamped with pictures of empty grocery shelves — from cream cheese to paper towels, children’s juice boxes and cat food.

Some of the culprits for this round of shortfalls are the same as in the early days of the pandemic, and some can be chalked up to new problems bumping up against old ones.

Here are some of the reasons an array of your favorite items may be out of stock at grocery stores.

The omicron variant surge has meant more work for stores — more deep cleaning, a return to masking and social distancing — just as more employees can’t work and are calling out due to illness or quarantine.

In a Monday call with 27 food industry chief executives, Geoff Freeman, CEO of the industry organization Consumer Brands Association, said more employee absences were reported in the past two weeks than in all of 2020.

“That’s remarkable,” he said. “Throw on top of that being down 80,000 truck drivers nationally, and another 10 percent of workers being absent at food manufacturing facilities, and you’re putting a lot of pressure on the system all at one time.”

Covid has swept through supermarket chain Stew Leonard’s, which has stores in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. Some 200 of its 2,500 employees are out sick or in quarantine, said owner Stew Leonard Jr.

“It puts a challenge, for example, on making every kind of pizza you want: The pineapple and ham pizza, we’ve decided not to make,” Leonard said. “And most manufacturers out here have done the same thing. Everyone is hit with a shortage of labor. Some because of the Great Resignation, but a lot of it is the omicron surge.”

Omicron pulls workers back to the eye of the storm, as workplace outbreaks grow

Access to rapid coronavirus tests is also making it challenging to get employees back to work swiftly, he added.

“Two weeks ago, our No. 1 selling item at Stew Leonard’s was filet mignon. Right now, the No. 1 seller is the rapid tests. We have a warehouse in New Jersey where we pick them up. We sent a tractor trailer and asked them to load them up. They said, ‘Not so fast. How much do you want to pay for them?’ It was a bidding war right there on the loading dock.”

The National Grocers Association has requested its grocers be prioritized for testing supplies from federal and state governments, and they’ve also asked for flexibility with new federal vaccination and testing mandates with the aim of minimizing further workforce disruptions, said Jim Dudlicek, the trade group’s communications director. With the prevalence of the omicron variant, even among vaccinated workers, many grocery chains are operating stores with less than half of their normal workforce, which makes it harder to stock and display grocery items or to prepare foods made on-site.

“While there is plenty of food in the supply chain, we anticipate consumers will continue to experience sporadic disruptions in certain product categories as we have seen over the past year and a half due to the ongoing supply and labor challenges,” Dudlicek said.

Coronavirus outbreaks among workers at meat processing plants are disrupting the supply chain. (Sarah Hashemi, Jayne Orenstein/The Washington Post)

Hot economy collides with huge virus surge in pandemic’s latest twist

Winter storms dumped more than a foot of snow across parts of the Mid-Atlantic just after the New Year, and sweeping weather systems have made road conditions difficult in many parts of the country in the past two weeks.

For example, the 20-plus-hour traffic jam last week on Interstate 95 near Stafford, Va., paralyzed a fair number of grocery delivery semi trucks.

“The winter months are always challenging,” said Doug Baker, vice president of industry relations for FMI, a food industry organization. “But we’ve seen weather patterns that we’re not used to in terms of frequency and magnitude, from the West Coast to the East Coast.”

In addition to weather delaying the delivery to grocery stores around the country, Baker said bad weather also influences consumer psychology, which played into some items getting sold out.

“There are certain products people ritually buy when there is an impending weather event,” Baker said. “And then when people see images of stores low on stock, it’s not out of the ordinary for people to buy two of something instead of one, just in case.”

And with more than 5,000 schools delaying their reopening this month due to the omicron surge and storms, families are feeling a greater urgency to lay in supplies of bread, milk, meat and cereal to make up for meals not eaten at school.

Canceled buses and a superintendent in the classroom: How omicron has thrown schools into crisis

Supply chain problems are no longer just about shipping containers sitting in ports or out at sea, waiting to be unloaded. They are also about the slowing of the production of goods that the United States imports.

In China and the United Kingdom, some municipalities have once again shut down factories and thus slowed orders for certain ingredients and food products for U.S. imports.

“A lot of our ingredients and products come from countries that have had their own spikes,” Baker said. “Some countries have taken a very strict approach and shut down manufacturing, so that slows the whole process down. It’s not just a domestic issue, it’s about how other countries are dealing with omicron.”

Still, at the nation’s busiest port, the Port of Los Angeles, cargo volume fell sharply in November compared with a year earlier, according to the port’s own figures.

Fruits and vegetables have seen fewer instances of shortfalls and supply problems than other food categories, but currently there are some empty shelves that are more about food safety. The Food and Drug Administration last week issued a voluntary recall on certain bagged salads and other vegetables due to possible listeria contamination. In general, though, there have been fewer food recalls during the pandemic.

More people eating at home

A combination of factors from rising inflation to surging omicron cases are prompting households to eat at home more — meaning grocery stores are being inundated with shoppers once again.

Grocery sales climbed more than 8 percent in December, according to national retail sales tracker Mastercard SpendingPulse. Stores are still restocking from that surge and have been struggling to keep shelves fully stocked in several categories since the beginning of this year, according to data firm IRI’s consumer packaged goods supply index.

“We’re seeing a lot of restocking and replenishment going on,” said Jessica Dankert, vice president of supply chain for the Retail Leaders Industry Association. The heavy shopping season has come at a particularly difficult time, coming out of the holiday period, when families traditionally cook more at home anyway.

Inflation emerging as top economic challenge in 2022

Widespread storms and the increased hesitancy around dining out because of the omicron surge have contributed to more demand at grocers.

Also, in some cities, restaurants and other food service establishments had to close temporarily due to coronavirus outbreaks among workers, which sent even more families to dine at home in December.

“You’ll see that replenishment build back up,” Dankert predicted, “but we’ll see these disruptions for months to come.” Inflation has also been influencing consumer behavior, driving them to eat more at home and travel and eat out less.

Grocery prices rose 6.4 percent over the past 12 months ending in December, the largest increase since 2008, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics index of prices. And for subcategories such as beef, prices rose a staggering 20.9 percent.

Here’s why your food prices keep going up

Datassential’s analysts say consumers turn away from restaurants and back to home dining when food prices surge. Restaurant-going becomes more of a splurge. Couple that with consumer hesitancy due to omicron, and consumers are swinging back to eating more grocery store food.

Let me know if that worked.  I called up the full article from WaPo, hit the "Reader View" on my mac (eliminating the sidebars and ads), copied and pasted it into a Mac Pages doc, recopied, then pasted it here.