Empty Store Shelves

How often when grocery shopping do you see empty spaces in the shelves? I have been seeing this for quite a while and now it seems to be the norm. It is not just sale products but all products. In my opinion the 3 day supply has now dwindled to two day supply or less. How well stocked are the shelves in your area?

I ran across this article and see that these people have noticed it also. They discuss trucking and lack of help but it makes me wonder. I think the days of going to the local market and doing your weekly grocery run is over. There is always something that is out of stock that I either have to go back later in the week or have to go to another store.

Why Are We Seeing So Many Bare Shelves at Grocery Stores Across the Country?
By
Samantha Biggers
-
February 7, 2019
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Over the past few months, my husband and I have kept an eye on the store shelves in our area. We don’t shop daily or even weekly, but the trend of increasingly bare shelves has been incredibly disturbing. This made me curious as to what others have been experiencing. As a member of various online prepping communities, I see a lot of conversations and concerns, but one thing that has stood out to me is the amazing number of people chiming in to report sparse or bare shelves or just not being able to find a specific item they like.

We visited many different stores.
Over several months we visited various regional and national grocery stores, drug stores, and dollar store chains.

You may be able to guess where these pictures come from but I am not going to mention store names because I fear that by doing so I will contribute to a damaged reputation for these stores. I don’t want to affect the financial well being of the hardworking families that rely on their employment with these stores.

The main grocery warehouse for a major regional chain is quite close, and they are a well-capitalized company with no significant financial difficulties, but even they seemed to have problems keeping some items on the shelf.
Follow link for the rest of the article:
Why Are We Seeing So Many Bare Shelves at Grocery Stores Across the Country? - DC Dirty Laundry

 

Down here? Every time there is a threat of snow-gotta get the milk ,eggs and bread BABY!!
Honestly, it's like it's enbedded in their DNA. Even Sass makes me go out for the big three even though she knows we don't need anything. I do because it's great fun to watch the folks running around like their heads were on fire and their asses was catchin'..

Good post.
Most folks don't realize/know that most stores now use a "in the nick of time" delivery system, meaning they depend on daily truck deliveries to restock and to help keep their inventory prices down. ANY upset to that system for ANY reason= empty shelves.

 

Never paid any real attention to empty shelves,Will ask around next time i see one.

 

Recently, we had a bad snow storm which closed a major mountain pass (Snoqualmie pass) to Washington State (we're in Northern Idaho). My wife went to the Walmart 3-4 days later and called to tell me that the shelves were bare. This reinforced what I was trying to tell her but what wife listens to their husband - well - she understands now. In my wife's defense, she is a naturalized citizen and all she has seen since her arrival in this country is abundance, unlike her old country. Now she gets it. Now she understands. The trucks stop rolling and it only takes a few days before shelves go bare.

 

No empty shelves at the local Wal-mart where I do most of my grocery shopping.

 

It's going to continue to slowly get worse until one day you realize you should have started trying to grow your own food 10 years ago.
When you first noticed bare spots on store shelves.

 

No issues in my local area

 

Here in OryGun, we have been hit with several mild snow storms lately, nothing to get all that excited about, except the cities and counties don't properly prepare for and react to them! Combine all that with a much larger population of transplants from our sunny communist neighbor to the south and we have mini TEOTWAWKI every time a snow flake hits the ground. The Stores no longer keep much back stock, preferring to hold in warehouses so they can change stock to match what ever holiday or seasonal changes are up coming, and we see this more and more now then we ever did before! A prudent person would know this is happening and would be better prepared then their neighbors, so this is a good lesson to those not as prepared as they should be!

 

Every time is like the first time.

 

Went one place this evening,Shelves looked fine here?

 

with just in time delivery, consumer tagging (loyalty cards) the super markets are trying to ring out every last cent out of their available floor and shelf space. empty spaces can happen if not managed correctly.

Optimizing transportation networks (how often resupply comes), inventory optimization (holding inventory in your network costs money) and pushing down holding/carrying costs down to your suppliers has a cascading effect. Everyone is needing to get lean to maximize shareholder value and to compete with others in your space whether it's grocery, consumer electronics, auto mobiles.

the days of over flowing storage in the back of the store are gone. Companies are recognizing billions of dollars .. yes billions of dollars saved over 5 and 10 year periods (sometimes even shorter timelines) by making minor tweaks to their supply chain by analyzing their data with Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and huge quantities of historical data.

How do I know .. guess what I do on a daily basis .. I help write that software that makes this happen.

The days of trying to figure out what goes on what truck when and what route they are going to take manually are long gone. Companies still using spreadsheets, and software like mappoint .. are going to be bankrupt trying to compete with those that are using big data to analyze and optimize their businesses.

 

No issues here. In fact, I was at Costco over the weekend and they had so much stuff they were stacking it up in the aisles. I noticed the same thing at CVS.

I think this article is trying to make a problem where there isn't one. While some of the issues it mentions are true and well documented (like the truck driver shortage), the main point of the article is based on very strained anecdotal evidence.

The other red flag: The article appears on an obscure blog. I did a quick search and found the exact same article, word for word, on other obscure blogs. I don't have a lot of confidence in the mainstream media, but I think if this were a real story it would be covered somewhere other than just offbeat niche websites.

 

Agricultural insurers seem concerned.
Also the drawbacks to growing your own food are .......... ?

 

Growing your own is....illegal !

 

We did notice it here for the better. . when the east had the ice storm and your shelves went dry ( trucks with food coming up from FL /Mexico south suppliers , they were not going to hold it or waste it. Shipped to the west coast and all the way up to BT hood . Needed to sell off nice stuff we haven't seen since.
Normal bad weather here , a hiccup, major hit 1 week and the store looks picked over.
Ms just ordered 36 huge bags of morning natures path heritage flakes natures path hertiage flaks at DuckDuckGo
on sale in bulk buy , 5.40 / 32oz bag CDN.
Last us 6m or less, depends on the kids .
We grow 1-2 years ahead we hope , weather to luck.
Sloth

 

I'm a bit amazed ... if you go late on a Sunday afternoon or evening after a sale you see emply shelves. The grocery stores use Just In time shipping and stocking. Dollar stores get what they get thru their buyers so this is a blogger they to stir up non sense. People make me crazy, take a small incident like shopping late in the day or the day before the next delivery and they conclude that the world is going into a shortage.

50% of food in America is being thrown away. You have to follow the money.

 

NOT HERE !! DOG to BIRDS ,fish to compost !!

 

@Cruisin Sloth thank you for that Readers Digest version of your life TMI

 

@Ganado VT jr works at a major grocer in our AO. Typically no deliveries after Friday night so produce is decimated, ditto for bread.
Most major shopping is done at his store on Saturday and surprisingly, sunday right after church lets out until about 2pm.

throw in no overstock in the back .. and boom empty space on the deal items, necessities and basic supplies. But Monday it'll be back up. typical frozen food is delivered 2 times a week, produce is typically 2 but maybe 3, deli is 2, dry goods is 4.

 

I have noticed that many of the large chain grocery stores have a sale on hot items but do not stock for the sale, thus as you say the quickly have bare shelves of that item. it also seems like similar items are higher priced than normal. Most of these same stores do give rain checks good for a month if you want to go to customer service in store to get them. Make sure you state the # you want to purchase.