Are Grocery Shelves Empty By You?

HeatherC

Alas...these people I live with ...
Joined
May 23, 2003
I keep reading everyday how grocery shelves are empty or going to be empty, etc. . With the exception of a few random times here and there every supermarket I have been in is plenty stocked. I am in New England by the way. I know about the supply issues, etc, but as far as food goes I am not seeing it. What are you seeing by you?
 
Our local grocery store chains have been good.
Meijer though has been not good - many empty shelves.
I’m in the Chicago area
 
Fully stocked where I am - Maryland. I shop at Giant, Shoprite and Wegmans. Also my mom in NYC hasn’t had any problems either. I believe her store is C-town. Hope it continues.

I will say though that for at least the last 6 months the Jimmy Dean section has been sparse for breakfast sandwiches in all 3 stores.
 


Yes & No.

Trader Joe's, Kroger, & Winco do a great job of spreading out extra stock to fill products that are missing. So things don't look like they are missing, yet are. Lots of product foward facing on the shelves with emptiness behind.

Walmart & Target, things are straight up gone/missing/empty. To be expected due to the fact they tend to be cheaper overall when it comes to cleaning products/paper goods/some food items. Even more so with online grocery where if a product isn't in stock, they substitue pulling from the next closest product which has an impact on that product's inventory as well.

Things I've noticed that are hard to get just recently: Vitamin D milk, Plant based Milk ( was none when I looked), Individual serving size of juice boxes/bottles, Pasture Raised Eggs, Paper Towels, Meat specifically Beef. Due to the drought and wildfires, green onions, cilantro, lettuce quality have been poor.
 


I have seen most things in stock maybe a little thin. BUT I also noticed it can be a huge
difference what day/time you go. I went last week first thing in the morning and many
choices. I sent my husband Sunday evening and there were many empty spaces.
 
Western MD here..and so far no empty shelves, except now and then a few in frozen foods, like french fries. Sometimes cat food is missing, 2 days later its fully stocked. Paper goods in ample supply for now, as are cleaning supplies,,fingers crossed they stay that way!
 
Juiceboxes are an issue in my area - I usually shop at Harris Teeter, Giant or the local co-op grocery store. I'm in Maryland - the 'burbs between DC and Baltimore.
 
I don't know how my grocery store can block aisles for stocking during the day/peak times and STILL be out of items i need routinely. However, we went out of town a few weeks ago and the same branch of stores were fully stocked! It was like this even pre-pandemic though at my store. At this point, i'm strictly shopping at Costco and freezing extra portions.
 
It looks better lately, store managers probably got told in increase inventory.

Shelves are still shallow and there is often one brand 10 wide and 2 deep where there would be more. The same thing happens in produce and meats. It's like a grocery store Combover, some are better than others.
 
We've had issues with some things, mainly certain cleaning supplies that I've noticed. My dad says toilet paper is low again (I haven't been to the grocery store myself in about a month).
 
From April 2020 to October 2020 many shelves were empty and you had to get there for certain things right when they were stocking them like TP and paper towels and cleaning suppolies.

In the past couple weeks what I've seen empty is anything dairy related which is rather annoying when you want things like yogurt and cheese.

The other thing that I've noticed in just the past week is the cat food section.
Like very slim pickings for canned cat food and I had to go to 6 stores in order to get the dry cat food my cat has eaten since she was 8 weeks old!
I also had to get a bigger bag of it than I like to. I like to get the 3lb bags which usually lasts a few weeks.
I had to get a 6lb bag. Thank God it wasn't a 16lb bag because I don't want the food to get stale.
But now I'm worried this is going to become an issue every time I need food.
 
My local Aldi has been out of apple juice and juice boxes for over 3 weeks. The Giant Eagle across the street has it, for more than double the price Aldi charges.

I went to my Aldi's last week and I couldn't believe how bare their shelves were. Almost the entire bread section was gone, hardly any juice and the produce was about half full.
My small local grocery store had full shelves but it's quadruple the price of Aldi's. I haven't been to the other stores yet so I have no idea how they are looking.
Just went to order online at BJs, they are out of the red Charmin, and out of bounty paper towels. Normally these products take up an entire aisle in the store. Since I didn't go in I have no idea if there is something there in their place or if it's just completely empty.
 

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