Covid-19 comparison of New York State to South Carolina Supermarket Inventories

I have been in my house for over 4 weeks doing major remodeling. I do it all with exception to the tile and plumbing. I also hired a Structural Engineer as I am dealing with load bearing walls. I have two active Building Permits and am buying all materials on line. My wife is a critical infrastructure employee has been doing all of the shopping. Today, May 2, 2020 she went to the supermarket. We live in a suburb about 15 miles from downtown Columbia, South Carolina. She said the 1st supermarket had NO napkins, toilet paper and was totally out of paper products. This has been like this since March. The 2nd Grocery store had NO paper products with exception to paper towel [6] packs. So next week the Governor will remove most restrictions relating to Covid-19. The stores involved were BILO and Food Lion.

Two weeks ago I contacted my family back in the Land of Cuomo; New York State. They said that all of the supermarkets were well stocked and yes, they had toilet paper, meat and anything you needed. Today, my wife spoke with our sister in law and she also said the same about the supermarkets. Now those stores I am referring to in New York state are located in Erie County which is Western New York; almost 300 miles from New York City.

So whats up with South Carolina? Here's some differences. New York State has a Democratic Governor whereas South Carolina is Republican. New York State remains on lock down with restrictions whereas South Carolina will almost be total restriction free next week.

All of the supermarkets in Western New York have their headquarters in New York State whereas Food Lion is North Carolina and Publix and BILO are Florida.

So I am just reporting what we are seeing in two States that are almost 1000 miles apart.

How are your supermarket shelves stocked?

A bit sparse here on Cali central coast, still no TP, meat prices are about double compared to pre-pandemic. Must wear a mask to enter. No alcohol, Lysol, Rubbing alcohol, occasional milk and eggs sold out. Stocking up on meat today as looks like there will be a shortage.

a reply to: Golani

Thanks. We have meats but low inventories across the board. NO burgers and little ground Beef.

a reply to: Waterglass

its very strange : UK [ NW england ]

my local tesco - still has zero flour . but bread products are all at full stock

also - thier " own brand pasta " - is zero stock - but premium imported itallian pasta brands - all full stocks

i have not seen a grapefruit - @ tesco for the entire month of april

but the lidl 200m away - has a small box full - every week - so figure that one

liddls " in house bread " - which is delivered uncooked - and finished by instore ovens - is very poorly stocked - but thier commercial bread [ from external bakeries ] - full stocks

tescos - " in house bread " - full stock

there are other anomolies - but i shall have to take notes next visit - cos i cant remember other things

I live in Perth Western Australia, no stock issues in any of our shops. Initially we were low on toilet paper and minced meat, couple of weeks ago, now it’s all normal.
Have had about 5 cases of the virus in our state, some 2.2 million people, over the last 2 weeks, pretty much a non existent issue now
Limited to no more that 10 people outside in a group, 1.5 meters distances expected but, nobody or few care.
Probably open up shopping centres and stores, think gyms are not going to be allowed open

Being so isolated as a city, state, country, seem to have dodged the bullet

I heard a few people have been trying to return the toilet paper they were hoarding to some of the supermarkets. Good luck with that

Give it a couple of weeks and it will all be over I think

Vancouver Island all stocked up. No sales to speak of but there is no shortage of any kind. No new cases in a week and only 6 sick out of 700 000 people so I guess things are pretty relaxed here at this time. a reply to: Waterglass

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Down here in the South USA we noticed that the first item to sell out was Noodles for spaghetti along with hamburgers. Frozen pizza was also flying off the shelves. Junk food [crisps] aisle was loaded along with canned soda probably because its produced locally. Flour well stocked.

Not many here like to cook as always they eat out. Since they cant eat out they go for the low cost mass quantity ease to cook items as many people aren't at work so their income is low.

a reply to: Raggedyman

Good to hear! Thanks

a reply to: abigredneck

We have Covid-19 cases but it seems under control although my wife has to go to work for a meat processor. I can possibly get it from her. We sleep in separate bedrooms for 5 weeks now. Both have separate HVAC systems. I have not felt good going on 7 weeks. No fever or cough or sore throat, just dizzy and pressure in head. Probably allergies. At least I hope so.

a reply to: Waterglass

Louisville, Kentucky here. I go to the grocery store every week. Other than the first two weeks of everyone panic buying and wiping out the stores since then the shelves have been full and I've had no problems getting anything I want or need with one exception: bleach and related products (sanitary wipes, etc.).

Since I go shopping weekly a disturbing trend I have noticed is that even though there is ample meat available the price of beef has sky rocketed! From one week to the next the price of beef has risen 50-60%. Pork and poultry prices have remained nearly the same but it seems like beef has become worth its weight in gold very quickly.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: Waterglass

its very strange : UK [ NW england ]

my local tesco - still has zero flour . but bread products are all at full stock

also - thier " own brand pasta " - is zero stock - but premium imported itallian pasta brands - all full stocks

i have not seen a grapefruit - @ tesco for the entire month of april

but the lidl 200m away - has a small box full - every week - so figure that one

liddls " in house bread " - which is delivered uncooked - and finished by instore ovens - is very poorly stocked - but thier commercial bread [ from external bakeries ] - full stocks

tescos - " in house bread " - full stock

there are other anomolies - but i shall have to take notes next visit - cos i cant remember other things

I'm seeing the same thing here in Texas with the big box stores' home delivery/pickup like Target, Walmart & even Aldi's grocery delivery. Unfortunately, one may have to go to several locations to complete the shopping list.
Very light inventories everywhere on all paper products including plates & "wipes" of all types.

Wife had no mask, went for medical tests & they didn't have any for patients (said the hospitals got them all). Wifey was hospitalized in early February w/ influenza & there were disposable masks all over the hospital (in the isolation wards where she was at least). The cleaning guy directed us to his cousin's Vape Shop(!) for masks and they had them in stock! Not cheap, but readily available... if you're lucky enough to get pointed where to go.

As far as delivered or pickup groceries goes, store brands & larger sizes (case over 12pack) 'sold out' and if you want fresh veggies, you're going to have to pay premium prices for organics because they're 'sold out' online. Funny thing is, if you go shop for yourself you can 'find' a lot of those 'out of stock' items. I can order dog food, but it's about 50% undelivered/credited after the order is processed. Last time I had to go inside to pickup a prescription, I checked the dog food & it wasn't out of stock - they'd just parked a pallet 5 feet high in front of the shelf where it was.

These shortages are contrived at some point. I don't know whether it's at the supplier level or at the retailer. At Walmart it is definitely a management function rather than a supply function I am certain (family in Bentonville, AR has no supply problems w/ Walmart HQ there). HOWEVER, the chicken producers in northern AR are creating some problems... there's been quite a few 'problems' in AR since Slick Willie was governor.

ganjoa

Washington State locked down here. TP and other paper products are back on the shelves with no restrictions. Hamburger is a little light, but still available, as are other meats. There is absolutely no flour or yeast anywhere, but there's plenty of sugar. Bulk rice is all gone. (Heavy Asian population on the west coast.) After a couple of weeks of no tuna and no pasta, both are back on the shelves and plentiful. Kind of a strange mixture of plenty and scarcity.

I'm in the deep south.

No TP, no paper towels, napkins and kleenex is sparse.

Meat is rationed to 2 purchases per shopping trip in many stores. Empty shelves in other stores.

Rice and pasta are sparse.

Forget anything that sanitizes, all gone

Plenty of junk food

If you don't mind a diet high in malnutrition and obesity, with poor hygiene, then the deep south is where you should go.

KC here. I can't give a full report because husband has been going out to do almost all the errands.

He managed to get actual TP last week, but there was a horrid-looking sandpaper-like brand on the shelves that no one has touched about a week before that. We stocked about two months before this all started so we didn't need to stoop that far.

He's been able to get everything we've need so far although we did need to get tamari instead of plain soy sauce early on, that was wiped out.

Butter was wiped out early too, but it's since gotten back on the shelves. We also had a week where all the eggs except cartons of 18 medium size organic were gone, but they had tons of those. So we have a carton of medium organic eggs ...

Canned beans were really patchy last week, and he had to just buy what they had instead of being able to shop brand. He was able to get what we needed though.

I don't know about the frozen aisles and things like. We don't tend to ever shop that stuff, so neither of us have really looked.

Oh, and he managed to get hand sanitizer last week, and I snagged some bleach when I stopped by Target on one of my rare outside runs, but it was the very last container on the shelf. Almost everything else seemed to be stocked.

Well went to make a food order with wal mart, they were out of stock of alot of what I wanted to buy so I am just waiting.
With wal mart it seems, it's more of when you try to place your order. But alot of people have found themselves with a nice infusion of cash so I imagine alot of them are stocking up as much as they can. We dont need that much anyway, nothing that a quick trip through a store later in the week cant take care of.
But. Ya, no toilet paper, hamburg, chicken breast, soups, at wal mart when I looked.

Here in central Missouri, paper products are abundant. For a month or so, it was almost impossible to get any unless you were standing at the door waiting for Walmart to open, now there's pallets of overstock TP and paper towels sitting around. Meat is our problem at the moment. Too many plants shut down from the virus all at once. Hamburger has been available, but chicken, steak, and any kind of pork are getting very scarce.

originally posted by: The2Billies
I'm in the deep south.

No TP, no paper towels, napkins and kleenex is sparse.

Meat is rationed to 2 purchases per shopping trip in many stores. Empty shelves in other stores.

Rice and pasta are sparse.

Forget anything that sanitizes, all gone

Plenty of junk food

If you don't mind a diet high in malnutrition and obesity, with poor hygiene, then the deep south is where you should go.

Florida here
...
Can confirm above comments.
will just add beef is hit or miss really. some days, theres steaks, next day, none.
Don't know about rice and pasta (I do Keto so I ignore those aisles) but I did happen by the ramen section and it was empty.
(really, people should visit an asian market...tons of noodles there)

North-west Mexico. Everything here seems pretty normal. I've heard complaints about some stores gouging, but I've not seen anything substantial.

The food bank is in overdrive to help out families that have lost work. We have a really good food bank here and the president is a friend. He said they were recently donated 20,000kg of chicken and had to share half of it with another district because they couldn't use it all.

We're under a lockdown order, but many people (myself included) are pretty much ignoring it. The street vendors are starting to work again after a couple of weeks of semi-haitus. The municipal market is closed, though. This is a windfall for the established shops as much of the purchase that would have happened at the market is going on in grocery stores, produce shops, etc.

I just had surgery so I'm not going out much anyway, but my cycling group is still going out in the morning, though officially they're not supposed to. They tell me they've not been molested by anybody.

I was downtown a couple of days ago, making some purchases and a police pickup came down the avenue with lights and sirens going, and a PA speaker saying,

WE ARE ALL IN DANGER. THE CORONAVIRUS IS CONTAGIOUS. YOU WILL BRING IT HOME TO YOUR FAMILY. EVERYBODY RETURN TO YOUR HOME AND STAY OFF THE STREET. WE ARE ALL IN DANGER.

I'm pretty sure everybody was just mentally flipping the bird to the cop truck.

a reply to: GeauxHomeYoureDrunk

There is tons of Chicken available. Beef is short on supply. Especially hamburgers and ground beef. Inventory on meat is low.

a reply to: The2Billies

I am just outside of Columbia, SC. Agree with you on all especially the size of people down here. They are like giants. I am 6' 1" and many women are taller than me.

Plenty of junk food