Just came from Kroger I didn't see any

[doc03]

empty shelves. Since a snow is coming Sunday people may buy up all the btead, milk and TP. Never figured that out? I see pictures on the net empty shelves like in the USSR.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Same here I have not seen any empty shelves since first COVID round.

Don't know is this is just a problem in major metro areas or just East Coast maybe?

[Scrivener7]

5. I live on the east coast, just outside NYC. No shortages here.

[Scrivener7]

2. I haven't noticed any shortages here. Not since they started talking about the

terrible shortages.

I thought it was just another "OMG, gas prices are going up" which always dominates a few news cycles when it happens when a Democrat is in office, but is absolutely ignored when a republiQan is in office.

But DUers have reported shortages in their areas, so I do understand it is happening some places.

[sky_masterson]

3. I went to the grocery store yesterday in kansas

All shelves looked normal.

[JT45242]

4. a lot of them are unfair to make Biden look bad

At least three of the ones that I have seen are the "seasonal shelves" at Walmart which are emptied when Christams ends and filled with Valentines and Easter stuff. If you take the picture after XMAS is removed, but before the new stuff goes in... VOILA -- Biden looks bad.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

11. I've also see shots of hot/cold bins where...

rotisserie chickens and take-out salads, etc. are displayed.

Ridiculous!

[MLAA]

6. In Southern AZ I've seen some sparse shelves.

[Lovie777]

7. No empty shelves . .

I usually go shopping for food very early morning and I have to contend with tons of boxes which have not been opened in the asileways.

[rownesheck]

8. I work in a grocery store

in Houston. We have a few items we haven't been able to get. And sometimes we get things, and then those items don't come in for a while. But then they come back. It's nothing like the pictures I've seen though.

[Torchlight]

9. The last empty shelves I've seen were in early March of 2020

And those empty shelves were limited to just toilet paper and disinfectants.

I guess those dime-store preppers and other assorted nutters thought clean counters and clean butts would be the new currency of the post-apocalyptic world.

[pidge]

26. Oh come on,everyone was confused about Covid then......not just preppers.

[Torchlight]

31. "...and other nutters"

Not preppers, but dime-store preppers and other nutters. Much as the difference between a soldier and a wannabe-soldier. Qualifiers are part of sentence structure.

[Hortensis]

34. Competent people stock sensibly for unforeseen but possible

shortages. And it doesn't matter where they get their toilet paper, bleach, and canned soup.

A serious weakness has been that as a whole our households have been very, frankly inexcusably underprepared for emergencies, a dangerous lack of resilience that can turn what should be small percentages of households needing special, immediate help into many thousands. That turns rescuers of others into self-victims needing rescue. Speaking of soldiers, that could enable a private at a computer to plunge an entire foreign city into an existential emergency the first day.

A positive result of the pandemic is that far more households are at least somewhat more sustainable and resilient than before, able to go at least a while before they're in serious trouble, because they've stocked extras against future need.

[Torchlight]

35. I absolutely agree, a responsible stock of anything falls well within reason

We (or I?) witnessed panic-buying from irrational people (nutters) making large purchases at the expense of every else, triggering the cycle to begin again.

What I saw in spring of 2020 was a month of people acting like Black Friday at a Wal-Mart when a big flat screen goes on sale for the holidays.

I do hope a large segment have learned from that, but my guess is that my hope is misplaced.

[Hortensis]

41. :) I knew there must have been someone who hung around in markets

waiting for people whose needs they knew in order to evaluate their choices against those needs.

Of course you observed what you did, but for going on two years now I've been taking posts about pandemic shopping on various forums as probably saying as much about the posters than anything else. There are strong patterns to posts on this subject, which falls into its own definite patterns.

My observations don't corroborate most, but I have a solid bias toward thinking people are supposed to be stocking up in those situations; also that some would be stocking for different sizes and numbers of households than my one empty-nesters', making it impossible to determine greed over need. Four cans of Dinty Moore beef stew would have to be assumed to be stocking up on a staple, as long as they weren't the last cans, with no alternatives. And a little person sitting in the cart seems more than adequate explanation and justification for grabbing two large bags of frozen chicken nuggets. I have a 15-year-old grandson who still eats nothing else reliably.

It may well be, though, that your markets and their shoppers are different from mine serving nondense populations in GA and FL. Certainly, smaller, busy markets that get people rushing home from work, like my old Trader Joes, get Black Fridayish for a while most days.

[Torchlight]

43. I imagine panic buying is as old as economies of scale.

I wouldn't guess anyone hangs around stores simply waiting for people to hurt them. I would guess that the reality of, and engagement in, panic buying* does hurt others and affects a lot more than the purchaser.

Why this is contentious is beyond me, yet my position that panic buying is irresponsible and hurts others and my flippant mocking of that irresponsible behavior seems to getting under some skin, so I'll walk away.

(*Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment by Thomas Gilovich; see also Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely)

[Hortensis]

46. I just feel a rather strong tendency of some to unjustly ascribe

the worst motives to people they don't even know can't be a good thing. It's the same on mixed forums -- "they" do it too. If it were limited to those on the right, that'd make more sense to me since they've become meaner than you-know-what, never miss a chance; but outrage at hoards of "hoarders" apparently "unites" us.

[phylny]

10. I live in rural Virginia.

We never had empty shelves before the pandemic, and had many shortages during 2020. Now, we do have empty shelves again. Frozen food, some meat, some canned goods. It is a reality here.

[Scrivener7]

16. Just out of curiosity, is your area blue, red or purple? My conspiracy mind is wondering.

Because clearly some places have shortages, and some places never did.

As someone upthread says, the shortages make Joe look bad and some reports of them are clearly made up or manipulated.

But I wonder if the places experiencing actual shortages follow a political pattern. If it was controlled for a purpose, they would tend purple.

[snpsmom]

21. Maybe connected to

weather/spikes?

[phylny]

39. Could be.

We had a tough snowstorm a few weeks ago and lost all of our for. I imagine others did as well.

We are expecting another storm on Sunday.

[phylny]

25. My area is VERY red.

Last year during the beginning of the pandemic I think most of the shortages were the same as other areas of the country were facing and possibly exacerbated by the fact that we live in a lake community and people traveled here and either rented a house on the lake or came to their second homes when their children had remote learning and adults worked remotely as well. When that happens during the off-season, the stores are stuck in the pattern of ordering based upon the prior years’ demand. Well, before last year the demand in February, March, and April are way different than they are in June, July, and August. I don’t think they could adjust quickly enough to the surge in population.

I have no idea why we are seeing empty shelves now. We can get enough of what we need, but there are lots of bare spots.

[Scrivener7]

32. So that means my theory doesn't hold up, but it's good to know. I hope you see some

improvement in this soon. Thank you for the information and good luck.

[Beachnutt]

12. No shortages here that I see

Dallas Ft Worth mid cities.

[oldsoftie]

13. Cat food has been sparse for MONTHS in many places.

And I've tried WM, Kroger, Target & Publix. Moist food. The dry food seems to be fairly normal.
I HATE online shopping but that'll be next if my girl decides she doesnt like the "new" selections i've been picking up

[cinematicdiversions]

20. Thank you! the cat food aisle looks like a riot took place

No matter what store you visit.

[MissB]

53. it's apparently cans

like the manufacture of cans. It is hitting the paint industry too.

[IL Dem]

14. SW IL here.

No shortages noted.

[doc03]

15. It is just the media get Joe Biden assault this week I guess. Joe Biden has been

under constant assault from the media ever since Afghanistan you add a couple Senators into the mix, and you get
low poll numbers. They want to put the Republicans in control of Congress again it will make high ratings.

[myohmy2]

17. "...like in the USSR."

...they had one advantage, shit was cheap and subsidized...

...but I'll find out...I'm heading to the store in 10 minutes...

...wish me luck...

[obamanut2012]

18. Same here

Target was a bit decimated last week in the dairy and frozen sections, and I asked a staff member if it was staffing or shipments, and they said inventory counts and staffing, but they had finished the inventory stuff and just hired 15 people for stocking and other stuff. And tbh, it's like that half the time anyway.

[snpsmom]

19. Went shopping at Port Huron Meijer last Saturday

6:30 p.m. and only about 20 shoppers in the entire store. One manned checkout, only a few open self check stations. Quite unusual.

Lots of sparse shelves. More than at the beginning of the pandemic. Signs on a lot of shelves limiting purchases to 4 items per shopper (canned fruit, beans, tomatoes, etc.) Lots of signs apologizing for supply chain issues. It was surreal.

Please don't flame me. I'm just reporting what I saw.

[doc03]

22. Must be a regional thing, weather maybe? In 2020 there was no TP, hand sanitizer or Lysol.

But I haven't seen a shortage of anything for over a year here. How do you have empty shelves in Michigan and no empty shelves
in Ohio?

[snpsmom]

24. We didn't have

bad weather, other than cold, which we're used to. We have had a spike in cases lately. And there have been reports of stores and gas stations shut down due to low staffing in some parts of Ohio, so...

[ruet]

30. Same In Grand Rapids.

Shelves have been pretty sparse for months. I see a lot of consolidation. A lot of brand variety and product diversity within brands is missing.

[lark]

23. The shortages that have hit us are pet food and home test kits.

Some stores have almost zero soft cat food, while others have around 50%. Even Chewy doesn't have all the kinds they used to, maybe half? Walgreens is out of home CV test kits and so is CVS.

[drmeow]

27. Here in central Virginia

my local Kroger was massively picked over last weekend -

No 2% milk (although plenty of others)
Almost no tomatoes at all
Lots of other veggie bins completely empty
No Coke
Other noticeably empty shelves

On the other, the Trader Joes was fully stocked with everything, even things they'd Bern out of for a reward months.

My local Kroger is a disgustingly substandard store which (I think) serves a minority community (there is a huge black mega church a block away, a Korean church about a block the other way, and a big Hispanic area that starts in a third direction). I'm convinced that the crappiness of this Kroger is deeply racist and it infuriates me. It also infuriates me that the rich (mostly white) people who live in my community (400+ houses literally right next to this Kroger) drive 6 - 7 miles away to a better Kroger or to the Wegmans instead of putting pressure on Kroger to improve this store!

[Calista241]

28. The Target I go to has spread out other goods to cover any shortages they have.

They have several refrigerators full of frozen waffles, 1 row deep as opposed to a really full shelf. Usually it's a couple shelves in one fridge, but apparently some frozen meats are not available nearby.

[Mad_Machine76]

29. I go into places everywhere

and don't see all of these empty shelves that the MSM is constantly talking about. Stores have always been very funky about what they stock and when and how much. I guess maybe some people just aren't finding some of their favorite items as easily as they used to?

[Ritabert]

33. Fox News used a picture of empty shelves from 2011

...in Japan after Fukushima pretending it was a current picture. We have full shelves everywhere aside from a couple of specific items that companies may be phasing out anyway.

[BlackSkimmer]

36. I was at a Publix in NC the other day. Oddly, cereal shelves were empty.

This Publix is usually very well stocked, but water was also sparse. Cat food seems to be hard to find all the time now.

Everything else looked fine. I don’t think any of us will starve to death anytime soon.

[doc03]

38. I need to lose a few pounds anyway

[llmart]

40. LOL

Yeah, I find it very hard to believe that there are emergency shortages of food what with all the morbid obesity in our country.

I haven't seen any empty shelves in my SE Michigan suburban Kroger.

[BlackSkimmer]

49. Well, now we're having one of our "southern snowstorm panics" lol.

The bread and milk emergency time. A friend just told me she came back from the store and people were buying like crazy.

Hell, I’ve still got enough stuff left over from the great Covid panic of ‘20 to last me forever. Plus my ladies keep me in eggs…🐓🐓🐓

[llmart]

52. Ha!

I used to live in the South and I am very familiar with the "milk and bread emergencies". One flake in the sky sends them to the store.

[BlackSkimmer]

55. Indeed! I've not been to the store, but friends are telling me it's getting crazy lol.

They’ve already salted the roads here in NC, so at least we’re doing better than our neighbor VA.

[llmart]

56. salted roads in NC???

When I lived there they never salted the roads. In the ten years I lived there we had only two snows; one that melted by afternoon and one that lasted one week on the ground. My kids were off school for that entire week.

[BlackSkimmer]

57. Oh yeah, they've done it regularly since I came back in 2010.

Often silly, since nothing comes of it, but oh yes, they do it.

The roads look white striped right now. Not so good for the cars of course.

[pwb]

37. They only had 4 forms of pretzels that taste the same instead of 5

No Chicken and alphabets soup, but did have noodle, stars, and rice. We are doomed.

[BlackSkimmer]

50. Lol!

so true!

[RFCalifornia]

42. "If it bleeds it leads"

Take it from an ex-newsman

[Mr. Ected]

44. "Tomorrow's snow storm is brought to you by:

Wonder Bread

Borden's Milk and

Vital Farms Eggs"

[Hekate]

45. I shop at Costco, Winco, & Trader Joes. No empty shelves...

Oh wait: Costco was out of Normandy Vegetables in the freezer section, but there was plenty of broccoli and cauliflower in the same freezer. That hardly ranks as a crisis.

[Zorro]

47. The Tampa Trader Joe's didn't have any Corn Nuts

and didn't know when they'd get them back in stock.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

48. I went to Kroger today. I was shocked that they were completely out ...

... of Russian dressing. I had to settle for some Catalina/French orange stuff. Oh, the humanity.

At least this week they had high-pulp orange juice. Last week I had to buy no-pulp. Yucchh.

Paper towels, toilet paper, and disinfecting wipes were abundantly stocked.

[GoCubsGo]

51. I saw them yesterday at my Kroger.

But, that is normal for a Thursday morning here. Wednesday is the first day of the weekly sales, and they tend to get cleaned out then. They usually are re-stocked by Friday. Sunday mornings tend to have empty shelves, as well. Also aisles clogged with shelf-stockers, because none of the stores here see to it that the shelves are stocked before they open.

[MissB]

54. I do a curbside pickup on Saturdays at my local Kroger (aka Fred Meyer)

Last week they couldn't fulfill baby lettuce, baby spinach, carrots, tofu and eggs.

I ended up popping into the local Winco at 6:30 am before picking up my curbside order at Freds, since I got a notification of the items that Freds wasn't going to fulfill well before 6:30.

Winco didn't have any sort of tofu other than extra firm, which is fine. That worked for the meal I needed it for. I had no idea that there was a shortage of tofu.

The lettuce/spinach thing kinda makes sense because of the weather related issues along I-5 and I-84, plus the recall of some bagged items. I was able to find what I needed at Winco.

And my hens decided to start popping out some eggs again, so I have entirely too many. Not a bad thing.

[tavernier]

58. There was no cream cheese at our Publix yesterday

except three tubs of generic. It’s the first shelf I’ve seen that has been out of an item… ever. (Well except for TP when pandemic started). I fell on the floor and sobbed loudly, “As God is my Judge, when this is over, I’ll never go without Salmon cream cheese spread on my bagel again!!”

[spanone]

59. It's one of those phrases republicons love...'Empty shelves'

kevin mccarthy said it during his press conference yesterday. the liars love phrases like that. you'll hear that all year...ad nauseum.

I was in a Kroger and a Publix this week saw ZERO empty shelves.

[EX500rider]

60. Actually today was the 1st time I noticed I couldn't get stuff I wanted

esp in the drinks isle (local Walmart Neighborhood store) Out of all 3 of the drinks i came to get and lots of empty shelve space.

[marie999]

61. I find some of the brands I buy but I can usually find a reolacement.

[krispos42]

62. Some of the shelves where I am are getting sparse

SW Connecticut.

The tomato sauce aisle has gaping holes in it... you're out of luck if you like 3-cheese/4-cheese/ 5-cheese sauce. Other types are there but inventories are low.

Cat food seems to be running low, especially wet food.

A couple of weeks ago the BJ's I go to (wholesale club) was completely out of mozzarella.