Anyone seeing first signs of food shortages?

I work for a trucking company in Salt Lake City, UT. We are very busy, running perishables mostly to the 14 Western states. More loads than drivers....

Nothing amiss is Denver. Only thing I've noticed is higher prices. I was buying a loaf of bread, and was astounded that many loaves were over 4 bucks. I can't recall bread ever costing this much. I've never been a huge stickler for saving on stuff like bread (I have a few certain items I hafta have the brand name of I like), but I bought some kind I've never had before since it was on sale. I know prices have been going up over the last year, but they seem to have jumped recently.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


I think the anonymous poster put this in the greatest perspective I have seen so far. Things have not reached a point where the actual distrubution is disrupted, but we are seeing significant signs of lowered spending.

Together with increased job losses leading to even lower spending the domino effect through the holiday season and into the new year could be pretty devastating.

He also brought out a very good point, if the stocks are down because of a drop in demand it wouldn't take much fear mongering on the part of the MSM to spur a quick buy out on the groceries before they could be replenished.

This is a good threat, I hope people keep it active and continue to contribute to it.

I live in a small town and although I'm not able to attribute it to the economic situation, there are some bare and sparse shelves at my store. Yesterday, there were no Nature Valley Granola bars. NONE! The whole thing was empty. And there were a few sparse and empty shelves throughout the store.

Like I said, I can't equate it to the economy, but it seems suspicious.

[edit on 22-10-2008 by Benevolent Heretic]

reply to post by Unknown Truth


hi, I'm located in Kentucky. I hadn't thought about food harvesting being related to the lack of sugar being on the shelf, but that's certainly a possibility.

reply to post by behindthescenes


I have not seen a shortage, however with the economy as bad as it is, and all theses talks about a "Global Financial Collapse" I am beginning to hear the word " New World Order " I am going to start storing canned goods, and maybe looking into buying survival meal kits. We have three children it is better to be safe than sorry.

I do not think the Ribeye steak I had for lunch was really 10 ounces more like 8 or 9. . I wonder if the government will offer free cheese and bread again to fill in for the missing fat and protein.

There won't be food shortages as in apocalypse movies, but we will see an enormous jump in prices like we have never seen before.
example, a bag of pistachio peanuts is now at $9.00 in NYC area,
orange juice is $5.00 a gallon in NJ,
average ground beef package, about $11-12..
are you scared yet?...
wait a few more weeks.. cause we ain't seen nothing yet!!

Originally posted by behindthescenes
Not sure if this is bad or not, but the local Krogers in Duluth, Georgia was shockingly low on bread and organic milk as of 11 p.m. 10/15. The canned goods aisle was also pretty beaten, although stock work had not commenced.

I think you're overreacting here. I used to work nights as a stockperson at a large local grocery store chain. The bread was stocked around 5am. The rest of the items were stocked by the night shift which ran from 11pm to whenever we finished...usually 5-6am. You were there at the perfect time to see empty shelves. There's no food shortage.

As of December 29, 2008
My husband and I have noticed the following:
1. The local Wal*Mart that serves a large population, ran out of Camel ciggerettes.
2. The 50 cent cans of generic vegis and soups are dwindling and not being replenished. Week after week they are merely taking the UPC code down, and the product is no longer carried by the store. Earth's Best baby formula is one such item my local Wal*Mart no longer carries. The Top Ramen has gone from a variety of flavors, to more chicken, beef, shrimp; filling the space where the other choices used to be..they arent coming back either, I guess. If you really stand at the end of an aisle, and look, you can see many gaps. Many empty spots throughout. Now, WalMart restocks nightly. It is not the restocking. I doubt there's a high daily demand that cleans out the Spam shelf.
3. The local unions are full.
4. The lumberyard is full of timber- it is usually only a quarter of the way full at any given time, and it is FULL and sitting there.
5. Houses arent selling, residental building has halted and many new homes sit empty.
6. Many small buisnesses are closing their doors permanently.
7. Large office buildings are for lease-teh while building!
8. My highschool daughter told me they have had alot of "emergancy preparedeness" drills at school, they tell the kids to go to the gym, are not allowed to leave, and the gym doors are locked "for security".
9. We have seen alot of equipment being transported to the military base.
10. Burglary is up in our neighborhood. Unreported: the kids with druggie parents; we dont want to report it, they are kids in need.

I know this forum is older but Im trying to figure out what is going on! I have noticed a food shortage - Im in a suburb of Atlanta. I went to the store (Kroger) with a list for 3 meals I was going to prepare - out of those three meals there was one ingredient for each meal that was out of stock. Could have been a fluke or maybe busy bc of holidays.

Also - I have an infant, we usually buy her formula at Babies r us by the case. The past three times I went there they were all out. Last time I called ahead of time to make sure they had, went to the store - nothing on the shelves - EMPTY. So I asked a clerk to check in the store room and he came back out and siad I have two cases you can have. So odd.

I am now buying it online and have not had any problems - and Im stocking up on it.

In North Atlanta, I did notice less canned beans at Wal-Mart (people eat beans for New Year because of "good luck") and the Wal-Mart seemed not well stocked in other items.

I am no economist, but I doubt there would be food shortages in the near-term but possibly serious inflation in food prices. We have already noticed food at Wal-Mart is 10-15% higher than last year. I would think logically that by the end of 2009, you could see very significant price increases and less choices in food products. I could see companies cutting back and simply emphasizing more basics.

We are stocking "emergency supplies" of food and water. We especially buy when things are on sale (Kroger tends to have really good sales). We stock things we would eat anyway so that if nothing happens, we will just not have to go to the store for awhile. You see, the fact is that really nobody has any idea what is going to happen. Not Obama, not Paulson - no one. We really are in unchartered territory - and I think it is a little scary and tragic.

I do think spot food shortages could occur probably in 2010. This would be due to a number of factors but probably related to suppliers credit problems, transportation issues and unrest in certain areas.

I've consistently been seeing empty shelves in stores of all kinds in a 30-50 mile radius from where I live for the past three to five years. I blame some of it on laziness in restocking and some of it on the current use of computers to do reordering instead of having a person actually check the shelves and the stockroom to see what is sold out and what is on hand to restock with. One store is chronically out of a handcleaner I like and their excuse for never having any is that "The computer does our ordering."

However, this past weekend I couldn't find 18-lb. bags of Purina Cat Chow in WalMart and the dry pet food selection was slim overall. Did find one bag at Kmart (15 miles away) but their entire dry pet food section was pretty well cleaned out. E-mailed a friend 70 miles away and she has the same issues with WalMart and two grocery stores in her town and was driving today to a larger town (20 miles away) to see if she could find dry kibble for her cats and dogs.

Is this pet food shortage a result of the holidays and shipping schedules being off or is there an underlying problem?????

if people are hoping god will save them from food shortages im NOT going to feel sorry for them when the die of starvation.

humans forgot about the idea of a larder and producing their own foods. im willing to bet most people do not have a 4 weeks supply of food. If I ration I have a 2 months supply and growing. Im going to have my own supply of food by mid year and COMPLETELY off the grid. Im short money hence the short supply of food. Im back to work monday.

[edit on 7-1-2009 by Hank Scorpio]

There is one thing to ALWAYS keep in mind about WalMart and other large chain stores -- the only thing they are concerned with is THE BOTTOM LINE. If an item is not selling, oh, let's say 10,000 cases a week nationwide, even though there is a high demand for it in Virginia or Tennesse, the item is pulled from every store in the nation.

In October our WalMart went from one of the old, smaller stores to a Super Store and in that short length of time, I have seen at least three items that I use removed from the shelves. No more space for them, and probably no intention of ever returning them to the shelves. Also, items that were on the shelves in the older store weren't transferred to the new store and they aren't planning to carry them anymore. Really makes a lot of sense to sell just one size of socks for people with leg problems -- went from S, M, L and XL available to just XL.

WalMart is extremely bad about having oodles of a new item to sell, but from what I can tell, as soon as they sell the 100,000 or so units of whatever, it is never replaced. Try to find blades for that fancy new razor you bought in September.

So . . . empty shelves in WalMart may not be attributable to a shortage of anything, but rather to the amount of profit WalMart is expecting to make on an item.

Check with locally-owned pharamcies (if you have any in your area) for health type items, including deodorants, etc. If there is a locally-owned feed store, see what types of feed they can order for you. Ditto for groceries, etc. Some locally-owned places will special order items they don't normally carry. If they have a source for them, that is.

In Canada, been noticing empty shelves in grocery stores, walmar, even costco. Last couple months. Although, we've been in a deep freeze for the last month or so.
Also, if it boils down to it, I WILL eat soylent green.

And...

Mad Cow isn't just for bovine's anymore.

Denver area here.

Noticed a lot of little things missing from the shelves. Have also noticed that they do not have much of a supply of a lot of items as well. A lot of can goods and boxed meal type things have a full front row LOOKING like they are fully stocked but a few months ago the stack ran 5-8 deep. Totaly its usually 1 or 2 deep.

reply to post by stander


It looks like that at my house too.

As for Fort Worth, I can say that I haven't noticed anything odd that couldn't be explained by the credit system post earlier. There deffinatly has been a run on all things generic at my local Wal-mart, though.

Northern N.M.

Albertson's isn't the greatest store on the planet, but they usually keep things stocked. It's becoming more common for them to be out of stuff - or very low.

Paper towels
Ethnic food, esp Thai Coconut milk
Imported Chocolate
Dishwasher Soap - and VERY expensive
OJ

In general, prices are up since the election. I noticed, like another poster, that bread is way up again in the 3-4 dollar range. Dairy is creeping up again too.

Middle Tennessee here and I have noticed the shelves of water are less than usual. It looks almost as if they cannot keep it on the shelves. I think it is just due to folks being scared and stocking up.