Here’s why grocery
store shelves are empty

It's not hoarding you twit. If you can't count on finding needed items at your favorite supermarket, or even getting to the same, it seems pretty wise to me to stock up. Since when is becoming prepared for the unknown called hoarding? Well it seems the term became popular among shallow thinkers masquerading as writers of current events. I guess we shouldn't expect this crop of scribblers to exercise the little grey cells to see if there might be a reason for the current phenomena. Just blow it off to "hoarding" and pat yourself on the back for such insightful reasoning. s/o

It was so bad here at our local Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Costco, that we went to Mexicali to buy our essentials, toilet paper first on the list. There was plenty of it. Shelves were full. The border coming back was easy. We drove almost right up to the gate, waited behind six cars, and was practically waved through after showing our passports. This was last week.

Good, informative article.

Most of us probably never thought much about the food supply chain before. But overnight food demand from restaurants all but dried up, while the grocery stores boomed. In the meantime I heard some wholesalers are selling toilet paper directly to the public. But it's in 50-roll boxes.

He says we should eat more seafood to support the seafood industry. It might sound heartless to some, but the "seafood industry" exists to support consumers - me - not the other way around. It's simple economics. I have never supported "bailouts" because if one is needed to keep a business in business, the truth is that the business isn't needed and should close. If seafood isn't in demand, the supply isn't needed. If nothing else, excess supply drives the price down. Also, the government has always propped up the dairy industry. Now it has excess supply that must be discarded. Of course, all this upheaval wasn't necessary in the first place and is being driven by liberal media and their agents - the democrat party.

I think where I live, in Florida, things must be easing up. Last week, at Publix, I found everything I wanted! Eggs! Yay! Bread, meat, even Chicken was plentiful. Still no Clorox products or paper products (but I didn't have either on my list). Yes, we're cooking at home (and a lot of us are sick and tired of it)! I think the Restaurants had better be stocking their freezers, because once we're out of lock down, they are going to have lines out the door! I don't plan on cooking for a month! Once the Beauty Shops open, there will be a Stampede! Nail Salons, same! Bealls, Belk and Homegoods are also on the top of my list of places to visit the first day I'm sprung! I'm READY! I told Hubby not to touch my $1200 check! I have plans for it!!

The issue with paper towels and toilet paper is that they take up a lot of room in the delivery semis and it limits the space available for other food items. Once the panic demand subsides the space will be more evenly distributed.

True, #1. Who am I going to trust, the news media or my lying eyes? When I go to Walmart and the entire paper products aisle is wiped out, it would seem prudent to keep more on hand in my house. Same with any other food product. I see no radical deliverance event on the horizon, save the return of Jesus. If anything, libs want to stretch the misery out as long as possible. Give households $2000 a month? No problem, fire up the presses....

At the grocery last night Limes had dropped from 35 cents to 8 cents. It is an example where the restaurant / bar supply of Limes was diverted to grocery stores and availability drove the price down.

Children go to school. Parents go to work. Thanks to CV, neither of those things are happening, plus we are being told to stay home. We are having a nightly curfew where I live. People are at home twice as much as they used to be. More eating at home. More using the toilet at home. They have to double the supplies. Anyone thinking this will be the new normal better think twice. Its not sustainable. Doctors are saying we will have to contend with CV until 2022. Really? Not sure we will last that long.

All of the hoarding has not been for personal use. Costco management told me that they were hauling toilet paper out very early in the game, before there was any sense of shortages anywhere. One person described long lines of people, often with two baskets so that they could carry more of those big tp packs (30 rolls each).. Our Costco had an enormous room devoted to paper products, and mostly tp. Wiped out in the earliest days. When they got more stock, the sold it in only the store, limited the quantity and would take no returns. They knew what would happen with many of the rolls that had been carted out early on. They’d see them in Returns. A person who writes the truth about the hoarding that went on is not a “twit”. We all saw it. It was insane. One man: 17,000 little bottles of hand sanitizer, bought on the internet? That’s hoarding, baby. He got caught out when his own internet store, where he tried to sell it at inflated prices, was shut down. They knew what he was up to. He supposedly ended up having to donate it. Maybe save some face? Our stores are not bad. We are fortunate to live where there are many choices of markets - more than one store for the major chains that operate here, numerous Trader Joe’s, Aldi’s, farmers markets…and if you are stuck for staples like milk, CVS and other pharmacies. Quantities are limited now so that one can buy enough for a week or two but not hoard. Clean out a shelf. It is taking time for some things to get back to full stocking, but it is improving. We have plenty of milk, eggs, bread - most staples. I even got toilet paper the other day. The produce department at both our Vons (Safeway) and Aldi’s, as well as at Trader Joe’s, look pretty well stocked. Canned foods vary. Those were really cleaned out. Packaged meat is available but I haven’t seen counter service available yet. The bakery is cranking out a lot of fresh items... The best article on food distribution was from the Conservative Treehouse. Very detailed. Not an MSM surface-skimming article like this one. "Phase Five Supply Chain – With a Message From A Dairy Farmer…." •Phase One was retail. •Phase two was distribution. •Phase three was the space between processing/manufacturing and distribution. •Phase four was raw material supply to manufacturing. •Phase five is consumer packaging capacity, and bulk storage inventories. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/04/14/phase-five-supply-chain-with-a-message-from-a-dairy-farmer/

In our area nobody is going to wal mart because they have restricted what you can buy and how many can come in. The local stores are pretty well stocked and if its on the shelf you can buy it. Not seeing near as many masks and people are smiling and chatting again.

Some of the shortages don't make much sense. I've been trying for three weeks to replenish my usual supply of Jimmy Dean Hot Sausage. It freezes well and i usually have 3 or 4 on hand. None in my store. One of the stockers told me he got in two cases of it last Tuesday and it was all gone in a half hour. Lordy!

My local Wally World has been doing a great job by being on top of inventory, stocking, sanitizing, etc. Shelves are well-stocked and crowds are light, no browsers and groups of teenagers and gossiping old folks milling around. The only empty shelf? The TP. I can live with that because I have been managing my home inventory since the reign of the Kenyan Lightbringer. His daily surprises were more dangerous than any virus and we learned early to be prepared.

I don't want to hear why grocery store shelves are empty. I get things have changed. So why haven't suppliers and grocery stores responded to the new realities? People are buying more when they go because they do not want to stand in line outside the store in the rain waiting to get inside. If you want to call that hoarding, fine, but I call it a common sense reaction of consumers.

More of the media is starting to discover what Sundance pointed out a couple of days ago on CTH. As Rush says about the "State Run Media" --- "Your show prep is about to begin". Read Sundance and be days to years ahead of the rest of the media. And much of what gets covered there is never covered anywhere else, but still true.

#5, if the industry is GONE, when you eventually DO want some seafood or dairy or whatever....what then?

Our shortages are structural, supply chain, and hoarding all mixed in. There was a 4 or 5 year period not long ago when .22 rimfire cartridges, normally the cheapest ammunition by a lot, were in extreme short supply, prices tripled and quadrupled, if you could find it. I have some good friends in the ammunition/powder business at the manufacturing and wholesale level. I asked them to check around within the industry on "what the heck is going on with .22 ammo?" They reported that it was strictly hoarders. Factories were turning out literally billions of rounds per year, like normal. What was different was that rather than the average shooter with a .22 keeping 5 or 10 boxes of 50 rounds, say 500 rounds or less on hand, people were buying "bricks" of 500 rounds by the half dozen or the DOZENS. Various bozos went on youtube to show off their 100,000 round or 20,000 round stash of .22 ammo, somehow imagining that it would become "valuable" in the near future. Some pukes got into business, going to Walmart and buying all they had in stock and reselling online for triple or quadruple prices. Walmart had to limit sales to 2 boxes of 100 rounds per purchaser. We saw this same "business" model with the idiot in Kentucky who drove to every small store in a 100 mile radius and bought ALL their hand sanitizer, had 17,000 bottles, a literal truckload, he was selling at high prices on eBay. He and some others like him, created much of the shortage. He got banned and gave it away, but this was his business model hear about a shortage, buy up all you can and raise the prices, helping to create your own "shortage"....my bet is he started with .22 ammo. You can create a shortage out of nothing if people just hoard a bit.

Hoarding or not, when one runs out, and the shelves are still bare, then what?

#6 I hear you. A lot of people can't afford to stock up or hoard. For three weeks I have been to the grocery store to see bare shelves without toilet tissue or Clorox wipes. At what point do people have enough ? For those that buy up TP they don't need, I hope karma brings you Montezuma's revenge and you use every roll.

RE #4: My sister was also having trouble finding TP in her area. Her husband was ready to talk to the janitorial staff at the closed school across the street from her home about purchasing several rolls and they sent him to a janitorial supply store where he picked up a full case. She says that they now have an overabundance and are making sure that family and friends are also stocked. Anyone looking without luck might try that solution.

RE #6: I hear ya, sister!! As soon as the salons reopen, my grays are history, my feet will be smooth and pretty and both hands and toes will have painted nails!! And then I'm going on a quest to buy some cute sandals to show off my happy feet!! I plan on visiting many of the "Mom and Pop" restaurants in my area to help them get back on their feet. I even plan on placing an order with my favorite gluten-free bakery for something sweet and decadent to celebrating finally breaking the bonds of government stupidity!! Should be a lot of fun finding ways to help my local economy recover.