I was at my local non-chain grocery yesterday, and other than (a) TP and other paper goods (empty), and (b) flour (hardly any), things looked almost normal. They even had chicken ramen in the brand the Firebug likes, and ramen’s been surprisingly hard to find lately, so I stocked up.
We went to Costco (northern NJ) first time in a few weeks. Main reason was to have the summer tires I ordered online installed. Since I had the winter wheels/tires on the car we had to bring the summer wheels in wife’s SUV. Costco people perfectly cooperative with doing that installation plus switch out, but it would be a little complicated normally and more so with the parking lot packed on a weekday (unusual at that Costco) and a 20 minute line just to get in and check at the tire desk. Hard to tell the exact reason for the crowd between more people still ‘stocking up’ and fewer allowed in the store at once.
On the incidental shopping trip: no chicken (we’d have liked some), normal supply of other meats (we didn’t need any), water one package per customer (would have preferred to get a couple) toilet paper (didn’t need) just disappearing as we were going by, at least that pallet (they might have set out another two minutes later for all I know).
In general it’s pretty non-scary at this point, some inventory issues but largely full shelves. It’s surely scary if don’t have the money to buy necessary stuff or wonder how the credit card bill will be paid, but you don’t see that directly as one shopper viewing others. You see people hoovering up tons of stuff but plenty left, mainly.
Back to Kroger, Fri. 3:30 PM. Plenty of everything except:
Lysol or any king of cleaner with similar active ingredients.
Sanitizer wipes
Iso Alcohol
Hand Sanitizer
Walmart today. Only thing sparse was spaghetti sauce and meat. Still some left, but picked over.
PLENTY of toilet paper. In fact, they had so much that I actually bought good TP and Tide laundry soap on CLEARANCE. They had paper and Styrofoam plates, bottled water, thinks like that stashed in every available corner and endcap. Guess the supply chain has caught up.
Any hope of Lysol and such any time soon? 
How were baking supplies (flour, sugar, yeast, mixes, etc.)? When I was at a Walmart in California yesterday, that aisle was in sorry shape (I did manage a couple of boxes of sugar-free brownie mix for my resident diabetic).
TP is still sporadic and almost non-existent at Walmart (and Target) online. Thanks for the report. I’m hoping that once the stores catch up, online will follow.
Publix, in Middle Tennessee.
Well-stocked, all staff masked, very, very clean.
They had dozens of gallons of their house-brand bleach.
No alcohol.
Pricier than Kroger.
Plenty of store brand all purpose cleaner, come to think of it I didn’t even go down the baking aisle.
Over $100 of our not-so-exotic biweekly Kroger pick-up was not in stock–rice, tomatoes, apples, oranges, canned chickpeas, pork, tomato sauce, and other items.
Heck, I work at the grocery store and sometimes I have trouble getting what’s on my list. There were three weeks I just could not get chicken, the shelves where looted by the time my shift ended.
Currently, I’m having some issues again. I may take a cooler to work for the perishables, do a quick shop 20 minutes before my shift starts, run the stuff out to the car for safekeeping while I work, then drive home.
Sometimes things seem very ordinary, other times the world is nuts.
I just went to my local Vons (mid range grocery chain) and there was plenty of everything. There was name brand TP, meat, produce, flour. It wasn’t crowded. If not for the social distancing at checkout, it wasn’t any different than February.
Actually, my Kroger did have household cleaners but none of what they had used the same ingredients that cleaners such as Lysol, which advertises as killing bacteria and viruses.
They had tons of Fabuloso which does not list ingredients on the label or make any claims as far as killing viruses.
I ordered two gallons of a disinfectant that uses the same active ingredients as Lysol. I ordered it from an industrial supply place and will report back if and when it arrives.
I’m thinking a lot about disinfectants because I’m still working everyday and depending on myself to clean my workspace and forklift and my table in the breakroom. I’m taking my own spray bottle full of Lysol to work and I’m using my stash up.
Check your local hardware store. I found wipes in a soft pack. I heard an NPR article that interviewed one of the manufacturers, and they said that they shortage was for those hard plastic containers for the wipes. They are working on switching over to the soft packs, because those they can get.
For those running out of TP, check with office supply stores, restaurant supply stores and restaurants themselves. The Perkins chain is now selling some of their food stuff, in store bulk, for curbside pickup, as well as TP and paper towels.
I will note an ongoing shortage of certain Campbell Soups.
I am still not having any significant issues with delivery/curbside pickup from smaller independent groceries - of 3 recent orders, for one they substituted a different brand of Parmesan, and for another, they were out of mesclun because it was Monday and it had sold out over the weekend. No issues with meat, dairy, or eggs, and I even scored a 1 lb. package of yeast. (However, TP and disinfectants are still basically impossible to get via delivery or curbside pickup, and my asthmatic self is not planning to walk into a grocery store anytime soon.)
Yesterday, I did a curbside pickup from Mariano’s, a local chain supermarket. No chicken, no Italian sausage (out of the basic groceries), and they were out of the broccoli rabe and the small bottle of Prosecco that I tried to buy Mom as part of a socially distant Mother’s Day brunch delivery we are bringing her tomorrow.
Folks who are looking for disinfectants, gloves, hand sanitizer, etc.: try Sally Beauty Supply online. They have stuff intended for cosmetology professionals. It ain’t hospital-grade stuff, but it’s a lot better than nothing, and they seem to have reasonable stock levels. Probably because they are limiting quantities, and probably because most of their regular customers aren’t buying right now because they can’t work legally in most of the country. (I ordered real hairdresser shears and stuff to color my own hair, and it took a week or two, but I eventually got everything.)
My Instacart order today, from Smart & Final, did net me a gallon of disinfectant viricidal cleaner concentrate. Diluted in accordance with label directions and put into the spray bottles I bought around the time supplies were starting to worry me (I’d had DIY household disinfectant/sanitizing needs in mind), I’ll get 32 gallons out of that. Not quite as convenient as the aerosol can, but quite workable. I could probably even use that solution for DIY wipes (I did save the last container I emptied, and managed to score another tub a few weeks ago. Also have decent stock of paper towels).
Went to costco but did not feel like waiting in a long line just to get in. Local store had everything but TP which I have plenty of .
Went to costco but did not feel like waiting in a long line just to get in. Local store had everything but TP which I have plenty of .
The Safeway by my dad had 12 packs of TP and 6 packs of paper towels. Also some hand sanitizer. I saw a huge display of flour at a different grocery store.
My understanding is that plain soap will destroy the virus by interacting with the fat around the virus.
Soap seems to “unzip” the virus’s outlayer. Then the virus’s “guts” just spill everywhere.
Fabuloso probably has actions similar to soap when it comes to breaking up the fat layer which surrounds the virus’s “guts”.