Check out this chart from the Wall Street Journal:
This is paired with a story about how grocery store shelves are practically empty, but look at the black line. It's pretty much flat at 90%. The amount of stuff on shelves hasn't changed at all.
Even if you look just at food ("all edibles"), in-stock levels have dropped from 90% to about 87%. This does not quite sound like crisis territory, does it?
Wait - what about the refrigerated dough crisis?
Indeed.
Well perhaps for the tubby suburbites the WSJ is worried about there's a crisis.... (where crisis means, minor fat generally well-off person's minor inconvenience)
Nobody actually BAKES that stuff, do they? ... well, breads, probably. Cookies - probably not.
Sure, but my family goes through ten gallons of refrigerated dough each week and blah blah blah Joe Biden's America.
That gave me a good laugh.
Mix with 12 gallons of milk & you got a stew going on.
Thank you.
But seriously, where I live (DC area) we had some empty shelves for about a day and a half but now things are almost fully back to normal.
I shudder to think of how my fellow Americans would react to a real crisis. We haven't had many "finest hours" lately.
During WWII, ration cards were issued to the populace and practically everything was rationed.
Although I hate the hype about "the Greatest Generation" it is true that they persevered in a way that is unimaginable today.
And the U.S. experienced nothing even close to what Europeans went through in those years - like Nazi occupation and the "hunger winter" of 44-45. Here in the U.S. we had to do without some luxuries, like driving cars and eating steak, but nobody came close to starvation or true hardship.
COVID is the first time we are fighting an invader on our own soil since the Civil War, and we are not acquitting ourselves particularly well.
I think, ironically, because the grocery "shortages" are so minimal, they generate more outrage, because the people getting all worked up about it are (a) media-types looking for something to fill the news cycle, (b) people looking to work a narrative about how Biden is destroying the country, or (c) both (looking at you, FoxNews).
The hardships are so minimal they don't generate any sense of community--just a chance to indulge in some grousing. Sorta like how if my neighbor's car alarm goes off at night, I would be irritated with them, but if their car was stolen, I'd feel sympathetic.
.... that's absurd as a metaphor. See 1918 Pandemic.
Even after the war.
The depth of privation in fucking Birmingham explains a lot of Ozzy Osbourne's later excess.
There were empty shelves at the local Giant but it was snow panic buying as we finally had real winter weather for the first time in 3 years this January.
About the only noticeable items missing recently at my Giant in Fairfax were catfood items. Birdseed was in short supply, but that store seems not to keep much in stock, so I usually buy two types elsewhere.
That's because after banning critical race theory by way of removing Toni Morrison from high school libraries, Glenn Yungkins's next move will be to ban lesbianism by banning cat ownership.
Not certain if you thought that was amusing or that you hit a target...but neither is the case, nor is attempting to tease out the significance always worthwhile
Thanks for the chart. I had the experience a few days ago of going into our local Giant supermarket and finding that the fresh vegetable section was almost completely empty. A couple of bags of kale and one lonely cabbage. No carrots, no cruciferous vegetables, nothing. The display that usually is overflowing with various types of berries was bare. Store employees were using the opportunity to give the shelves a good cleaning. A fellow shopper saw me standing there with an amazed look on my face, and told me he also felt gobsmacked.
I have had similar experiences on a pretty regular basis for quite a while. Then when I go back a day later, the shelves are mostly restocked, and most of the meat, produce, dairy and bakery items have new long-lead-time resale dates.
The result where I live (Shenandoah Valley of Virginia) is that I frequently end up shopping two days in a row, but I almost always get fresh items with long shelf-life. Typical examples in recent months include: (a) packaged bread with a 9 or 10 day sale date; (b) packaged salad greens with a 7 day sale date, and (c) yogurt with a sale date of 8 weeks or more.
I think the grocery stores are adopting, either deliberately or by accident, the modern manufacturing strategy of "just in time" inventory management. It's a pain in the butt for the consumers who hate to shop, but it's a boon to those of us who value fresh items with longer future shelf life, and it saves the stores from wasting much food that "expires" on the shelf.
"Father, what did you do during the Great Refrigerated Dough Shortage of 22?"
Lol!
With a food processor pie dough from scratch is darn easy.
Yes! Would never go back to a pastry blender. Not just easier, an order of magnitude faster, and the results are better!
Wall Street journal should be disbanded. Anti-American globalism in a nutshell.
Given that the only refrigerated dough I ever use is what I've made myself and put into the fridge/freezer, I think I'm in good shape.
I think this is a case where the statistics don't do justice to subjective experience. Seeing numerous specific items missing from grocery shelves in 2021+ is jarring, regardless of the big picture stats
I think it's jarring until you get used to it. Then you may begin to appreciate "just in time" inventory management, which tends to put fresher items on the shelves when they are restocked. The downside is that when you go to the store with a long list, you will very likely have to go back a couple of days later to finish filling the list. I gladly trade that for the freshness of my purchases, which will last that much longer after I take them home.
I'm trying avoid repeat visits myself - I stopped going into the store and have been doing curbside pickup -- trusting the stores to do good substitutes which mostly they have - my local Giant has excellent curbside pickup Whole Paycheck pretty good as well when you want the good meats and cheeses..
Oddly unspecific about those excised items.
I've often noticed grocery supply stocking problems, but they've been going on for at least ten years, so it isn't COVID. Supermarkets have long relied on high merchandise turnover, so whenever there is a hiccup in the delivery schedule stuff runs out of stock. Over the years, there have been shortages of flour (not just during COVID), canned tomatoes, cinnamon, red onions, jack cheese, nacho sliced jalapenos, pumpkin pie filling, smoked salmon, heavy cream, and so on. It usually comes back in stock in a few days. COVID may have made it worse, but a lot more people are buying supermarket food instead of relying on restaurants or fast food outlets. Supermarkets aren't designed with a big buffer, so even a small change in dining habits can lead to spot shortages.
The shortages appear to be highly localized and sporadic. Where I live (Baltimore) I've seen almost no sign of empty shelves except for right after the holiday when we had a major snowstorm hit the area. Even though Baltimore itself was largely spared the worst, transportation was badly disrupted across the region.
Yea, this is definitely one of those cases where the data doesn't match local reality.
We're in a suburb of NYC, and we have quite a few empty shelves. Produce? Picked over and pretty bad looking. Organic bread? Unavailable from every grocery store in the area for a couple weeks now. Lots of other random things like yellow mustard completely gone from shelves.
I do am in Suburban NYC and have barely noticed anything missing. Occasionally have to go to another store for produce as one might be missing an item or two. Costco seems fine as well.
The Boss reports Cat food is hard to find. Not hard enough apparently so I can’t starve them away. Before I get roasted I half jest. Outdoor cats we spayed and have to feed. They take and give nothing. Though no mice anymore.
There was a line at the Arby's drive thru too. At lunch time! Can you imagine? I had to wait! It's time to overthrow this oppressive regime.
There is never not a line at the Chik*fil*A at Vancouver Mall (Wash.).
Except for Sundays, of course.
No oysteh crackehs Saturday! How am I supposed to eat my chowdah?
Let them eat matzoh?-)
That's ( ( ( dietary ) ) ) violence.
My local Acme Supermarket was out of Nabisco Premium crackers I needed for my mom, but did have a supply of oyster crackers.
Perhapes Wile E Coyote cleaned out their cracker inventory.
Glad I'm not the only one looking for oyster crackers! However, no problem with fresh produce in CA....
I got 3 bags. Easy to find.
Part is just in time deliveries. Part is shelves not getting restocked quickly--too many people out. And any local disruption magnifies the problem.
That said--bird flu may hit hard soon. If it does, flocks will be culled--and we'll see chicken shortages.
Who is promoting these crisis stories?
Couldn't some enterprising, say, reporter, look into it?
When your head is in the oven and your feet in the icebox, on average you are comfortable…
All I know is that I can't find my favorite spicy chili crisp and I will be voting straight R in November. Thanks Obama.
I'm peeved because the chip aisles only have spicy or plain chips, seems to be a shortage of the mild flavors and way too much flaming hot what not.
Trader Joe's was out of Ezekiel organic sprouted bread two of three visits this last week. Are wheat berries constrained, sprouted wheat berries constrained, or are
the bakers out with Covid? TJ's sells mostly self-branded merchandise and when it cannot achieve its target markup drops products without notice. When Ezekiel was in stock Thursday, the price had increased $0.49.
A couple of months ago Good Morning America ran a segment on how healthy Ezekiel bread is. That week TJ's was also out of inventory.
I see specific products that seem to be out of stock more frequently, like my wife's favorite flavor of non-dairy creamer, to which I can usually substitute her second favorite flavor of non-dairy creamer. Oh, the humanity!
"No Lettuce, No Celery, No Berries, No Avocados." That was Senator Marsha Blackburn's complaint. And in typical liberal fashion, Kevin omits them all from from his chart.
All of which are available in copious quantities where I shop. But, admittedly, they had no organic blueberries last time.
Sounds like a typical DC elitist smoothiehead.
Recently, Costco was out of whole peppercorns. Fortunately, I was able to wait a week for it to come back in stock, or I would have had to buy pre-ground pepper. Oh, the humanity!
Heh I support my local Penzey's shop and buy the flaming liberal whole peppercorns.
Anecdotally, for the last 4 to 6 weeks or so, the meat and vegetables sections of not one but all three of my local stores (different chains, all) has been very sparse for certain things: chicken breasts, various cuts of beef, bacon, sliced/deli meat, spinach, green beans, onions, and so on. We've had to alter meal plans on numerous occasions because there was just no stock.
This also hasn't really been a transient thing. For even longer than that (6 months? a year?), the fish and sausage that I prefer to buy has been in "if you see it when you go, buy it" status because it's not guaranteed to be there when I want it. And it's not special fish or sausage either - just the regular stuff that Aldi stocks. Not the frozen packages. Plus intermittent issues with the stocks that have been more of an issue these past few weeks.
We have not seen fried onion rings, anywhere, restaurant, take out, store, no where. The shelves are empty. The frozen food, veg, are empty on many shelves. It's almost frightening. Not enough product to spread over the holes. I don't know about you but we have a shortage.
Every week something we want is out. What it is varies. 2 weeks ago it was apple juice. Last week it was grapes. This week it was my usual brand of flavored water. This doesn't bother me much, we won't starve people bought seasonal food for a long time etc. but it is definitely a different environment than pre-pandemic.
Maybe one should visit a few grocery stores in addition to looking at graphs. Where I live there are definitely half empty shelves in some areas (tea, milk, some other specialty items plus of course paper products).
It is not the case that there is a real shortage of essential items but your favorite brand is missing in may stores. But if you just measure the square footage of empty shelve space you would certainly find it has gone up recently.
I am far from saying that this is a real problem. But it is unusual for this country.
Have you been in a store lately? Two weeks ago, there was no chicken to be found in any of three stores I went to. Also, "Total store" covers a hell of a lot of not-food stuff as well as processed foods. If you're trying to eat healthy, what is important is the perimeter of the store -- meat and fresh vegetables. On this graph, meat tanked about the time chicken disappeared and for some reason vegetables don't count. But I guess we're covered on Gatorade.