Observations from the last few weeks, both at work and while shopping.
The grocery stores are well stocked on flour, well, untill you look closer. Lots of bread flour, all purpose flour, and bleached white. Some speciality flours (I actually found rye at my local grocery for the first time EVER), but NO whole wheat in any brand.
Is there a shortage of canned cat foods? Specifically Fancy Feast, which I’ve now seen to be short at several different stores, including one pet store, but also related sized cans in at least a couple brands (for all I know they’re all made by the same factories, I’ve been to lazy to check). Also, kitty litter seems to be short, it sold out when the original shut down happened, but recovered quickly. Now suddenly its short again.
Feminine sanitary products shortages. IE: tampons, pads etc. The grocery store I shop at the most, the one in the larger city near my work, has had less than full shelves since this all started back in March, but about Oct-ish I noticed the shelves were decidedly empty looking, and Nov-ish I noticed they cut the available shelf space in half. Now even that shelf space is looking pretty damn empty. I forgot to check at my local to home grocery last time I was in there.
Cleaning supplies are still fucked. Shelves only look full because of creative stocking and random brand availability, if you actually look close there’s ALOT of products still missing. Though I actually saw multi-surface 409 at work a couple weeks ago, it was one case, but it was the first I’ve seen since this started. In addition brands that we were able to get all summer are suddenly not available at all. Specific examples include Spray Nine and Greased Lightening. And I won’t discuss toilet bowl cleaners in any brand, lets just say that if you see it you’d better grab a bottle, cause god only knows when you’ll see it again.
Paper goods do seem to be recovering, though they’re still not back to normal levels.
I find most of those things online. Have been shopping Chewy for pet needs (canned cat food, kitty litter, dog food and even prescription dry food for one cat) since this all began, and Amazon for just about everything else. Specialty flours from Janie’s Mill or you could check Bob’s Mill among others (King Arthur Flour, and Amazon). You can’t trust Amazon prices, be smart and “shop”! I find a lot of cleaning products at my local Agway, especially toilet bowl cleaners! Now I’m going to check into groceries delivered to the front of the store, as numbers of virus cases seem to be closing in, I am becoming less inclined to expose myself, even though I have been shopping during the 6-7am seniors hour. I believe the first panic is well over and you should be able to find just about anything you need.
Sure, I can and do order in anything I can’t get. Thats not my point.
If more than one store is having trouble getting in specific products, especially across brands, then there’s one of two things going on at this point in things. Either there’s still panic buying of those items happening. Or there’s a serious issue happening in the supply chain.
And while many folks are comfortable ordering in things, not every one is, and these shortages that the general public is seeing at their local stores continues to drive a level of panic, which makes people further likely to huddle and allow further panic shutdowns and other emergency measures that are going to continue to cause more harm that good.
BTW, I found toilet bowl cleaner (Lysol brand) at Costco t’other day, package of four.
That doesn’t actually surprise me. I’ve not gotten around to a Costco membership, but I’ve seen multiple reports that Costco has been better stocked on a variety of highly wanted items that other stores can’t get.
My cats get Fancy Feast too (main food is Iam’s kibble though) and I’ve noticed a dearth of that at Wally World. The local Shaw’s, for the most part, is usually fairly well stocked. Since Rita only likes Chicken Pate’, and Spot only likes Gravy lover’s Beef or Chicken (Rainey is not that picky, thank goodness), I am keenly aware of when they are in short supply. The GL Chicken seems to be very popular and most likely to be out, or short on the shelves.
Cat litter – Rita’s allergie’s only let her tolerate Tidy Cat 4-in-1 (black top) and I am constantly on the hunt for 40lb buckets. I can usually find the type with Glade (turquoise top), but that makes Rita sick so I can’t use that. When I do find the 4-in-1 I buy several at a time. I try to keep 3 or 4 of them on hand at all times. I did get down to just a partial bucket a couple of months ago before hitting upon a store that had some.
Trouble’s thyroid is screwed, so she loses weight at the drop of a hat, and while she’ll eat kibble she much prefers wet foods, specifically FF, though she’s not quite so picky as to have only one or two flavors she’ll eat. So I try to keep several week’s worth on hand anyway, so I don’t have to worry about her having food to eat. But its been getting scarce on the shelves. The petstore is better stocked that the grocery stores, but not by as much as I’d like to see.
Neither I or my cats like the scented cat litters. I can’t stand the scents, and the couple times that was all I could get the cats definitely didn’t like it as much.