Most of the stores I’ve been shopping at have limits posted on the always empty sand sanitizer and TP shelves.
This is one of those things that didn’t have to be this way, the government should’ve anticipated this panic-buying. And I still think it’s being badly mishandled and I think there will be labor shortages within the distribution network - suddenly these low wage factory workers and loading dock workers and truck drivers and stock clerks and cashiers have the most critical jobs in the nation. Theyre being asked to risk exposure daily as they rest of us stay home, for minimum wage and meager benefits. I bet most of these people don’t even have decent employer provided insurance.
Someone from my household goes to the grocery at least once a day, we usually need something or another but mostly for reconnaissance - I don’t want to wait a week and risk being blind-sided by completely empty shelves.
Plus, we’ve ended up going from store to store to store searching out items because the stock is so uneven. We can usually find everything but we have to hit multiple stores to get milk, bread AND eggs - every place is always out of something that other stores have. It increases contact, though.
And there seems to be no plan to address this except by telling people to ignore empty shelves, that the supply chain is strong because AMERICA RAH RAH. Not good enough for me.
I think a LOT of people are about to learn to make their own bread, and even sourdough. I am on a bunch of cooking FB pages, and I feel like I’ve been doing noting for the past 2 days except reposting the link to the King Arthur Flour website with instructions on how to make your own sourdough starter.
South Jersey Shoprite today - zero paper products, no chicken, very limited beef. I didn’t even look at the water. Nothing wrong with our award winning water supply. Unlike Tuesday, there were not many customers.
Next week’s schedule has even longer hours for all of us.
One of my coworkers was taken away in an ambulance today. Not the covid virus. Suspected heart attack.
My next day off is not until Wednesday. Every day we get asked “will you stay longer?” No. I need my sanity and my rest. I will work the hours I am assigned, but not more than that.
Onwe of the nice things about living in a small town is you dont get as much crazy panic for things. The people dont exist to make a long line for anything so its not as much of a freakout.
We’re trying not to stock up too much, but it is a freak-out when there’s no oatmeal, say. I was in line at 7:00 this morning to buy a bag of manure and some squash seeds, because if we go to a more extensive lockdown, I’m guessing the home and garden centers won’t be exempt.
We usually have a fair stock of ground chicken and turkey, and chicken breasts, in our fridge and chest freezer. But with things being the way they’ve been lately, we were down to one small pack of chicken breasts. We’ve got plenty of everything else, but this was a noticeable hole in our larder, the way we cook.
So I hit the local Giant when it opened at 6am. The poultry shelves were bare, but the guy behind the meat counter said they were getting ready to unload a truck. So I waited, and was rewarded with two or three each of ~1 lb. packs of ground chicken and ground turkey, and family packs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
So now we’re in good shape on pretty much everything; we’ll just need to top off the supplies every now and then as opportunity presents itself.
This morning the local grocery had most everything other than TP/paper towels. And bananas - tho they said more were coming. So we’re plenty stocked w/o hoarding.
Store reserved Tues, Thurs mornings for senior citizens.
They might be. New York State has sensibly declared food production an essential business; and food producers, even professional ones, need access to seed, tools, etc. While some of those come through wholesale sources, farmers also need local hardware stores and similar places. And I would think that many areas would want to encourage home gardening in addition – both in case of possible food supply disruptions, and as something that can be done at home.
However at this point I’m certainly not giving guarantees about anything. Go ahead and get your seed now; it can’t hurt. (Just only buy what you think you’re actually going to use.)
Big change since Sunday. I went to the same Kroger as last weekend, about 3:30 PM Friday. Much more emptied out. No sanitizing wipes by the carts, an employee was spraying and wiping carts for customers as they came in. No beef except expensive steak. Pork way down since Sunday, mostly store brand sausage and bratwurst. Canned fruits and vegetables massively depleted. There was a case of diced tomatoes so I grabbed 3 cans. If you like canned artichoke hearts you are in luck…so far. Bread was available, mostly wheat. Bakery loaves available but only big ones. Frozen fish was gone except for some tilapia patties (grabbed a few) and super cheap store brand fish sticks. There were frozen french fries which I’ve been told are a hot item locally but only 5 lb. bags. Fruit juice which was plentiful Sunday was gone. Still plenty of bottled water. Hand sanitizer and isopropyl alcohol all gone. Still no TP, only some super high priced fancy napkins. Still lots of apples and oranges, onions, some other produce but no potatoes. No hand sanitizer at the checkout as before. The cashier had a spray bottle of something that she was spraying the checkout line with.
Things looked much worse. I overheard the cashier tell the customer ahead of me that they had gotten ground beef and chicken in earlier but it went fast.
I definitely had that “Shit’s gettin’ real” feeling.
I went back to my local Whole Foods today and they no longer have a pallet of TP; they appeared to be completely out. Other than that, though, it largely looked normal. Produce was completely stocked. The meats were probably 2/3rds stocked but they had everything. Lots of eggs, milk, and cheese; bread was about half stocked. The only thing besides TP that looked scarce was yogurt and flour. Paper towels were low but present.
I assume most of the low-stocked areas were manpower related; there was a staffer in every aisle putting something out and trying to keep on top of things.
Somewhat interesting to me is that despite all this the store was about normally busy and check-out was a breeze. The crush must have come earlier in the day.
