I’m seeing only low quality paper napkins available. The good ones are not to be had.
No paper towels at all in the store yesterday. Some toilet paper but only off-brands.
Lots of big empty spaces in the frozen food sections.
I still have some of our stash from the spring, all off brand quilted stuff. Back then we were all taking turns buying it wherever we found it. I prefer the quilted stuff, the rest of my family likes the Scott single ply stuff.
A few months ago, I purchased a case of Scott TP and used it to “buy out” my family’s interest in our stock of quilted TP, and took all of it for myself. But I still recently saw a big 24 mega roll pack of Charmin, and snagged it. I’m using that first and the 42 double rolls of off-brand quilted stuff can be my winter backup.
I prefer non-quilted two-ply. And when “residential” TP was scarce in the stores, I found this:
Oh, that’s weird, the link when I look at it directly shows the paper, not the spindle-kit:
Compact Coreless 2-Ply Recycled Toilet Paper by GP PRO (Georgia-Pacific), 19378, 1,500 Sheets Per Roll, 18 Rolls Per Case
Anyway, it’s a giant roll of thin two-ply paper with a very small hole in the center, and no actual roll. (The last two sheets have some glue or something to hold their shape, and don’t peel off neatly.)
I bought a thin spindle to go with it, and the rolls fit in the non-standard holder in my master bath. WIN! I have ordinary stuff for the rest of the house, but I now have a huge stock of this paper that is pretty close to my ideal. 
Oh, I see – the one link lets you pick between
“four rolls and dispenser for home use”
“18 rolls”
and also between
“1500 sheets two-ply compact recycled”
“1125 sheets embossed compact recycled Angel Soft”
I bought 18 rolls of the 1500-sheet stuff.
I went back to Costco today and, surprise surprise, it looked like everyone was buying TP.
They did have 5-packs of Clorox disinfecting wipes, which I picked up. That’s the first time since March that I have seen actual Clorox brand wipes anywhere.
I have a bad feeling the wingnuts are going to cause another panic situation and the hoarding will begin in earnest, if it hasn’t already.
OJ section at super Walmart had major gaps.
Here in northern Aus I’ve been finding weird shortages, like NONE available for purchase. They include:
Cornflour (Arrowroot).
Frozen berries.
Frozen baby peas.
And next week it’ll be something else that’s missing from my shopping essentials.
I’ve weighed in a few times here to say that in the past few months I’ve noticed no shortages at all. But in my last grocery shopping there seemed once again to be shortages, specifically of some frozen foods. It’s a bit unusual for one store to be out of some particular product, but really, really unusual for multiple stores to be out of multiple products and to actually start seeing empty space on some of the shelves. Also, on a previous shopping trip where I only went to one store, they were almost completely out of paper towels. Fortunately I was able to pick up a giant megapack (their last one!). It’s so huge I have to keep it in the basement!
It seems really unpredictable. This might all be related to the general phenomenon of a second wave of COVID sweeping over just about everywhere.
I’ve been seeing the same as @wolfpup. Things that had become plentiful the last few months are suddenly absent again - with the exception of baking supplies. I think too many of us that really got into baking early in the pandemic have been dealing with the associated weight gain, so are trying other hobbies.
On my last large grocery store run, a fair amount of the meat department was depleted, especially ground burger and chicken. Coffee creamer still seems to be a big thing, along with frozen vegetables and canned soups.
I’ve been ordering frozen sausage and biscuits packages on my pick-up for 3 weeks now. I’ve even specified that it can be any brand. But I haven’t gotten any. I don’t know if this is recent since I haven’t ordered them before. I just got a craving for them and now I want them. Is this widespread?
My part of Canada does not seem to be experiencing many shortages - apart from the usual suspects of temperament and patience.
Biggest shortages where I am are disinfectant wipes (of course), social skills, and driving skills (also not exactly unusual here, but worse than “normal”).
Driving skills on average deteriorated here when the official line was that we were supposed to self-isolate as much as possible. There were significantly fewer cars on the road but the people who don’t care about others’ health also don’t care about safe driving. Thankfully, there weren’t more unsafe drivers out there in an absolute sense.
That’s interesting. In my experience, I’ve noticed that courtesy seems to have gone up over the past half year, both for drivers and pedestrians.
My thought is that the encouraging of social distancing has resulted in more “Après vous, monsieur,” both orally amongst pedestrians and by hand signals and smiles amongst drivers.
YMMV, obviously.
I’ve heard people say they’re going to stock up on the items they weren’t able to get last time. I’m hoping supply has also increased, or the whole shortage will be self-perpetuating.
At least everywhere I’ve ever lived, all grocery stores always stock up on baking supplies this time of year supporting all the Holiday-driven baking & feasting. Right now my stores are bursting at the seams with holiday baking stuff. Which mostly arrived in the last few days.
You can tell the difference because there’s a lot, lot, lot, more sugar, pumpkin, candy sprinkles in red and green, etc. It’s not just more general purpose flour although there’s a lot more of that too.
Are they about to be raided more than usual due to impending COVID panic buying, or less than usual due to home baking fatigue from the last round of COVID plus fewer people planning big holiday family events & parties? Or lots of each netting to roughly zero change from last year? Darn hard to say.
Yes, this.
For the most part, the shortages started when the media started to report on the possibility of a return of shortages.
According to NextDoor, local news stations are reporting alleged panic buying, which in the apparent consensus opinion of ND posters is creating same.
Central AZ, kitty litter is almost wiped out and our brand was totally gone. Toilet paper stock is fine, no tissues.