Grocery Store Report - 03/22/2020 (some good news)

So, with Ketsuko's jolting reminder about butter (which I forgot at the store), today I ventured out into the war-zone we used to call "grocery stores".

And, here's what I found...

WOW!! What a change! Not only did they have butter, but they had just about everything! No TP still, but just about everything else. I was shocked! Complete 180 degree turn-around from yesterday!

The store was still replenishing stock, but they had about everything...milk, eggs, butter, fresh veggies, meats, and about anything else you could think of. Flour is still a goner too, but they had sugar back. Even had some water. Even more shocking, they even had Cambell's chicken noodle soup in four packs (I never thought I'd see any of that again)!

They're recovering!!!

My hat is truly off to both truckers and grocery store workers for hanging in there and fighting the good fight...despite it all! The clerks were cheerful, if a bit haggard, but still busily working away.

I was truly moved.


P.S. And Ketsuko, they even had soy sauce. I looked just for you.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Costco where I work has all of these; except paper products and flour/rice which are in high demand and aren’t use to this “high” of demand... but my logistics look good from the receiving end of the business.

All should be well

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Condoms! Please tell me they had condom's a plenty. We simply cannot have the current batch of 22 year old's, staying home and reproducing on a mass scale. Idiocracy must remain a movie!

I bought two packs of toilet paper at a local Dollar Tree for a buck a piece today. The limit was 4 per customer and there wasn't alot left but I saw no point in grabbing more than a week to a week and a halfs worth.

With the panic of clearing the TP shelves already having happened, my logic is that those people have already stockpiled and the restocks that come of TP will gradually increase the volume on the shelves in the coming days. If you have months worth of TP in a closet already, why keep buying it? Eventually, it'll stay on the shelves to some degree. They wont be full like they used to be, but if you aren't as picky about brand and price, you should be able to get some right? Stores are limiting quantities per customer which helps. They didn't do that during the initial rushes.

The closest Wal-Mart was laughable. Even all the ground beef and cheese was gone. The nearest Food Lion was fully stocked with cheese and there's is higher quality. The Great Value Wal-Mart brand cheese was bought out except for a few varieties and marked up to almost $2 a piece from $1.33. Food Lion's ground beef was gone too however. Plenty of deli meat. Ramen noodles were gone but plenty of Chef Boyardee, Chili, Beef Stew.

Even the spaghetti sauce aisles were looking dire at Wal-Mart, but better at the Food Lion across the street. I think Wal-Mart getting hit harder is more of a phenomenon locally than every grocery store getting hit equally as hard.

a reply to: FlyingSquirrel

Like I already mentioned, we quietly bought enough of that type stuff: laundry and dish detergent, TP, paper towels, toothpaste, soap, etc., to get us through what we'd use in about two months or so over the course of the last two or three months.

We figured it would hold us during any total quarantine or during panic shopping like this or it would be stuff that's shelf stable that we'd use eventually anyway.

So this is all more amusing than anything. So long as we can get the fresh stuff to avoid dipping into our extra food stocks too much, we're good.

Our stores are still barren.

Out of flour, sugar, yeast (pretty much anything usable for baking is gone.) Powdered milk is also gone. No eggs, no beef, some chicken, cured meats are picked over, milk is a rarity. Soup, pasta, rice, pasta sauces, canned meats and seafood, canned veggies, ramen noodles, dried peas and beans - all empty. Frozen veggies were also gone.

TP, tissues, paper towels, baby wipes, flushable wipes, dish soap, dishwashing soap, hand soap, lysol wipes, hand sanitizer, peroxide, aloe vera gel, alcohol: empty. Masks and gloves are long gone. There are no thermometers either. Good luck finding any sort of pain reliever. Yesterday when I checked, the shelves were almost empty, including the one I rely on to get through work (motrin with muscle relaxers.)

I don't know what we're going to do soon. The hoarders are keeping the shelves empty as they're hitting the stores first thing at opening and cleaning everything out. I overheard a woman bragging about how much she'd already bought and had stored away. Meanwhile, there are many older people who can't even get enough to live on.

a reply to: ketsuko

Right on. I personally don't have the funds to prep for longer than a couple to a few weeks at a time on things depending on what they are, but im cautiously optimistic.

I don't think there will be/don't want to believe that there will be orders denying people the ability to goto the grocery store in my area in the future. Looking at California and New York, the epicenters, as well as other stay at home order states currently, people are still allowed to goto the grocery store, gas station, pharmacy, and get drive thru or take-out food.

Everyone's account of their local stores really depends on their location. Including Marketplace which is grocery and pharmacy, there's 6 Wal-Marts within 8 miles of me and 4 Food Lions, not to mention Harris Teeter, Kroger, Aldi, Lidl, Dollar Generals, and several Dollar stores. Untold number of pharmacies. The surrounding cities that all share city limits have a similar amount or more.

Same in the Shreveport area, pretty much all is restocked with rationing of TP at the local Walmart. I was even surprised to find Vitamin C 1000 mg capsules. Our governor made an address to mandate staying home for all except essential personnel and there was quite a surge to the local grocery stores. Hoping all will be well, but with the 2 trillion liquidity package i am more scared when things do get back to normal and TP is on the shelf again I wont be able to afford a roll without a wheel barrel full of digital fedcoins LOL.

Find out which days the semi's come in, they usually come in twice a week at the bigger stores here. I found out what days they come in from the butchers at the two local stores, but I don't know anyone higher up at Meijers or Walmart, I think those places get stock about four times a week here, but there is different foods on different trucks because someone who works in the deli told me that much of their deli stuff comes on a certain day separate from the meats.

I just need flour. I look at two different stores every day with no luck.

Years back, when I worked for the parks, I acquired one of those big industrial rolls they used in the restrooms and put it with the "camping supplies". I forgot about it until I did my inventory last weekend. Although it's cheap one ply, it will last me a couple weeks of personal wipe if it came to it. Otherwise we got enough TP for a while.

I did a round robin to the two local grocery stores and the one sporting goods store over the week end. No TP or other paper products like paper towel, total empty shelves. No Lysol products except toilet bowl cleaner. Less meats, although one of the stores have restocked since. Eggs, milk, butter good, didn't check flour or sugar, but I suspect it was there. OTC meds were doing OK. The last grocery store I checked, the bigger one, had a line up down the road a few minutes after I left. I got out just in time, it was a normal when I was there.

The sporting goods place had a pretty good line for ammo and guns, I parked out behind it. I picked up some cleaning kit stuff and .22cal ammo, and a few other items. Most of the customers were buying ammo and one guy was purchasing a gun. The place was packed.

I pulled a hundred out of the local ATM, it had the cash and no line there.

In my sister's area, they wiped out de-greaser. She was taking the opportunity to do some deep cleaning since ... what else?

And she ran out of de-greaser and it was gone ... everywhere! Like she told mom, "I can get the bleach and stuff being gone, but what the heck are they going to do with de-greaser?!"

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

It is the calm before the storm. Don't let down your guard

I went to the store this morning. They had toilet paper and other paper products but heavy rationing as in store employees guarding the aisle and handing each shopper only one of each product you wanted. No bread at that time but the bread truck had not arrived at that time.

Everything else was stocked and being restocked as I and others made our way down the aisles. I don’t believe we are truly facing shortages but just seeing how the just in time delivery systems in place can be problematic when people panic and hoarse, then its harder for the stores to get replacements in and stocked.

In Louisiana here, and just yesterday the Governor locked down the state. Aside from toilet paper for some reason, there have been no shortages other than maybe a particular brand not available which is more to do with every store nowadays pushing their own brands instead of the more familiar names.

Hospitals are empty and not seeing big increases in patients like in the larger cities at this point and with the exception of New Orleans the number of cases is less than 20 with zero deaths locally. As long as people stay reasonable, I doubt we will see shortages locally