When do you think grocery shopping will have a sense of normalcy again?

[barkley]

i'm guessing around where i live the stores have to be even more insane today b/c yesterday was when the mandatory k-12 school closings went from a few counties to the entire state so parents will need to plan on having the kiddos home all day until at least almost the end of april.

that said-i think for our area there may end up being some longer term changes at grocery stores. we have 3 universities and 2 community colleges whose students will shift to on-line for spring quarter. many students report that they do not plan to stay in the area when they can do their work from their parent's homes in other regions. that is going to have a huge impact on the grocery stores. i don't know how the 3 individual stores in the college town closest to me will all manage to stay open b/c they traditionally make the monies they need to stay open (on a reduced staff) for summers during the academic year so losing 1/3rd of those monies could break them. the larger chains may opt when items become more available to reduce how much or what they stock.

 

[DisTXMom]

This isn’t meant as a harsh or judgmental statement, but people can’t afford to keep panic buying. We are seeing and hearing of people with full cartloads of grocery items having credit cards declined and having to leave it all. Our budgets aren’t flexible enough for us to binge shop like some people are doing. I asked my checker about what they were seeing last week- she said she Shipt delivered 6 cases of water to a family that week (in a metro area) and when they opened the door to take delivery, they already had more than twice that stacked up in their entryway. >18 cases of water??? At some point, people will run out of space, money or both.

 

[fsjking]

have some skyline you will feel better.

Until you get the bill....

 

[disneychrista]

I'd say when coronoavirus is no long the talk of the media.

 

[starry_solo]

i am hoping things return to normal in May.

 

[RamblingMad]

I give it a week or two for the supply chains to catch up.

 

[RedAngie]

Hopefully by the middle of this coming week. Sure, there will still be shortages and out-of-stocks of some items, but the mad frenzy of wiping out entire aisles and cases will hopefully subside.

DD went to the higher priced Acme instead of Shop Rite, Giant, Costco or Walmart and she says things are much better there. They even had some toilet paper. They also had plenty of these items too.

 

[sky13]

I'm in Singapore. We went through the panic buying phase start of February (when community transmission cases were first detected) - grocery stores here emptied of toilet paper, rice, instant noodles, hand sanitiser, alcohol wipes, etc, couldn't get delivery dates on grocery deliveries or could only get them a few days out, etc.

After a week or so things settled down and the grocery stores were pretty much back to normal (except for hand sanitiser, masks, alcohol wipes). I think this was the time needed for the supply chain to catch up and for the stores to be able to move stock from the warehouses to the stores.

Just went to a grocery store a couple of days ago and noticed pretty much everything was in stock except for masks (I think this is not going to come back in stock any time soon given the more pressing need for them by healthcare services) and alcohol wipes. Even hand sanitiser started coming back in stock this last week, though a lot of them are somewhat strange brands I'd never seen before (I think new companies are starting to make hand sanitiser).

 

[Farro]

I'm in Singapore. We went through the panic buying phase start of February (when community transmission cases were first detected) - grocery stores here emptied of toilet paper, rice, instant noodles, hand sanitiser, alcohol wipes, etc, couldn't get delivery dates on grocery deliveries or could only get them a few days out, etc.

After a week or so things settled down and the grocery stores were pretty much back to normal (except for hand sanitiser, masks, alcohol wipes). I think this was the time needed for the supply chain to catch up and for the stores to be able to move stock from the warehouses to the stores.

Just went to a grocery store a couple of days ago and noticed pretty much everything was in stock except for masks (I think this is not going to come back in stock any time soon given the more pressing need for them by healthcare services). Even hand sanitiser started coming back in stock this last week, though a lot of them are somewhat strange brands I'd never seen before (I think new companies are starting to make hand sanitiser).

Thanks! I find this comforting.

 

[lynxstch]

I was in both Aldi's and Walmart here this morning. Both stores were busy, but not crowded. Aldi's shelves were fully stocked for the most part. Only thing I saw that was pretty empty was the refrigerator case that usually is filled with the bags of cheese, and the cottage cheese and yogurt were pretty empty. They had toilet paper, kleenex, and paper towels. Only thing missing in that row was disinfecting wipes. They even had gallons of bleach. They were limiting shoppers to 2 gallons of milk, 2 dozen eggs, 2 pkgs of toilet paper, and 2 cases of water, but to me that makes perfect sense in this situation.
Walmart wasn't that bad either. I was expecting to find the cat food row empty, but it was fairly well stocked. Dairy, meat and produce were all fully stocked. They were unloading a flat of toilet paper in that row, and there were plenty of cases of water. There were paper towels, and kleenex on the shelves. But they weren't limiting people to amounts however, and some people were being greedy and walking away with carts filled with water, toilet paper, paper towels etc. Overheard one lady say she was going to resell it at a higher price. There always have to be some to take advantage of the situation. The only row that seemed to be really empty was the soup,pasta, sauce row. There wasn't a bottle of dishwashing liquid, no bleach, laundry detergent wasn't very full, and no disinfecting wipes. There was no rubbing alcohol, peroxide or hand sanitizer to be found. The girl at the pharmacy there told me to head to Dollar Tree, that they had a lot of those things.
I expect people to stop being so paranoid after a week or so. Just use common sense and stop letting the media put everyone into a panic and things will work out.

 

[Wendy31]

Yes, I tried not to participate in the panic-buying & stocked up on some stuff about 2 weeks ago. We don’t have a lot of extra pantry & freezer space, & I typically only menu-plan & buy for one week at a time. And, after my initial “stock-up,” I grocery-shopped 2 more times - but just for what I needed for each of those weeks.

I haven’t yet menu-planned & shopped for the upcoming week.

So these last 2 days w/ everyone panic-buying & now realizing nothing is left on the shelves anywhere in our town is making me anxious.

 

[tvguy]

I am seeing lots of pictures on FB of empty shelves, but I have been on vacation and had not been in a grocery store in 2 weeks. I did not venture to the toilet paper aisle, but I was amused that they had pallets and pallets of Dasani water at the front of the store, ON SALE. And peaking down a few aisles, the shelves were full. My daughter did go to Costco yesterday, and they were sold out of toilet paper. But she went across the street to Walgreens who had plenty.

 

[DisneyLover1217]

When people run out of room to store all the stuff they bought.

 

[Donzie]

Dixie Chili is much better.

I prefer Gold Star, then Dixie Chili, then Skyline. I worked at Gold Star as a kid and had good experiences and consider the chili nostalgic. But I will eat it all who am I kidding.

 

[Farro]

Well, we went to Mariano's today for a bottle of wine (I have my quarantine stash tucked away) for tonight and we picked up some movies at RedBox.

Hope no one wants frozen vegetables!!!



But don't worry, plenty of Dude Wipes for all!

 

[ponyboy]

Probably middle of this coming week.

There are enough products in the supply line to supply stores for months, they just can't get them distributed fast enough. The demand hit so fast that there hasn't been enough time yet to even out the supply to meet the demand. By mid-week there should be enough stuff getting delivered to quell the urgency for people to hoard everything plus the fact that all the people that panicked with either have what they wanted or will have run out of money.

Pretty soon all the people who spent hours standing in line will feel kind of dumb when everybody else is just walking in grabbing stuff and leaving in 10 minutes.

Similar thing happened here with gas a few months ago. The media reported a possible shortage, which was false, and everybody ran out to buy gas and created a shortage. People were waiting in line for an hour at the pump. They were filling up 55 gallon drums. Then two days later everything was back to normal. Lol

 

[Swimnoid]

We just got back from our local major chain grocery. Everything was pretty well stocked except TP. It was busy but they had all the registers open. I've never seen that before! I ran into a friend whose college age sons were sent home so her cart looked like she was a major hoarder. Nope, she'll probably be back on Monday!

 

[LilyWDW]

Within a week or two would be my bet. People freaked out. They were being told they may have to quarantine for 2 weeks. Then families were told the kids will be home for an extended period of time. Things were changing. Normal was no longer normal. So people panicked. Once things calm down some, people will adjust to a new normal.

I bought a little extra. That way I would have enough food for about 2 weeks. It wasn't a bunch and my meals will be boring but I have meat, carbs, and frozen veggies!

So for next week (starting the 21st) I will have my wanted plan and will try and do a grocery pickup order, but if I can't get all I want, then I will get creative.

 

[pryncess527]

I think some items will provide challenges for a long time, but most perishable items in the supply chain are probably coming from fairly close and will be restocked soon. things that are produced in the US and Canada we will likely also be able to restock quite quickly.

I would think it’s advisable to continue to keep your house well-stocked, because if there are interruptions in the domestic supply chain we could see the same situation again and it would take longer to resolve. Luckily we haven’t seen that yet.

 

[RamblingMad]

All I want to do is stock up on enough ramen to last a month, not that I even like ramen that much, but it expect it to last. I guess I can experiment with some ramen recipes while being stuck in my house as we move to indefinite work from home.