SUPPLY CHAIN UPDATE: My Sunday morning at the supermarket

I wrote this last Sunday morning, and accidentally saved it as a draft, rather than publishing it, meaning only I could see it.  I blame the computer. None of my faults are my fault.

The empty shelves syndrome may have peaked -- not obviously worse that the prior Sunday, for the first time in many months. 

The store -- Meijers in nearby Southfield, Michigan -- is getting better at spreading out the products in wide, shallow displays, to disguise what used to be empty shelves.

Example: 

At the Philadelphis cream cheese tub display rack, there are usually about 200 tubs with one dozen of each flavor in each row. Today there were 50 tubs spread out with only two tubs in each row. A closer look showed there were only two flavors spread out wide. Not flavors i wanted.

The breakfast cereal row had a huge amount of empty shelves. But we had stocked up on Kellog's Raisin Bran last week, and didn't need more for a month.

For the first time in many months, our favorite ACE bread from Canada was available. We bought four loaves at $4 each, to freeze three of them. Left the last loaf for someone else ... only because we couldn't fit any more in our freezer!  We're ACE bread hoarders!

For the first time in three months, the store had Smuckers sugar-free jam in two flavors out of four - but not the red raspberry flavor I like.  Sorry Smuckers, I stopped eating your product three months ago because it was never in stock, and now I'm no longer interested in any flavor!