Supply Side Survey: Our Weekly Trip to the Supermarket.

 SUMMARY:

The empty shelves problem continues, just as bad as last week, which was the worst in six months. Shopping for groceries continues to be a strange adventure. There were 23 rows of Kraft ranch salad dressing today, with one bottle in each row to fill up space. Similar displays with other flavors. Displays are like that all over the store. And there are still lots of empty shelves!

 

We used to shop at 7am. Now we shop at 6am when the store opens for business. And we are now officially hoarders too, frequently buying more than we need for the next week. Whether the item is on sale or not. This is at the huge Meijer's supermarket in Southfield, Michigan. There is no checkout line that early, and employees are in a good mood during their first hour of the day -- they are happy to see us.

 

Bird Food

Plenty of suet at $8 for a box of 10 plain blocks -- a very good price. We bought 2 boxes for our lucky birds who get 4 blocks at a time.  If they had been in short supply, I would have bought four boxes. "Our" birds also get expensive thistle seeds and a heated bird bath. They eat better than we do.  There were more empty shelves than usual in the cat food and dog food rows. If your pet likes a particular flavor, of a specific brand, good luck. If you see exactly what you want, buy enough to last a long time, like we did a few months ago.

 

Philadelphia Cream Cheese

82 eight ounce tubs of soft cream cheese where there are usually 200. Not many flavors available. That's better than most past weeks, which averaged about 60 tubs. There were no 8 ounce blocks of plain cream cheese, except for 6 Philadelphia 8 ounce low fat blocks at $4 each. Last week they were on sale for $2 each, when we bought the last 8 ounce low fat block of Meijer's brand for $1.19 on sale -- none available today. I would never buy low fat cream cheese again -- get the real thing!

Soda Pop

Bought Diet Coke last week on sale. Boring. Back to Diet Doctor Pepper this week. A case of twelve 12 ounce cans was on sale for $5, instead of the usual $6.  There were only four cases on the shelf -- I wanted two cases, but bought all four. Next shopper gets an empty shelf.  Still an unusual amount of empty shelves in the soda pop row for the past month.

 

Breakfast Cereal

No raisin bran cereal of any brand, in any size, in the store. Happy we bought enough for a month last week, because out of stock raisin bran has been common in the past month.

 

Sugar Free Bread and Butter Pickles

Mainly empty shelves in the past few months. But today there were six small jars, and we bought all of them.  Next shopper gets an empty shelf. I've started buying small cucumbers to make my own pickles because I can't count on finding these pickles next time.

 

Hillsdale Farms packaged sliced ham

Glad I bought a few 16 ounce packages of sliced ham last week on sale. Today they only had sliced turkey and chicken. I  decided to try the low priced Smithfield brand sliced ham today. I had tried their sliced salami in the past -- mediocre quality.  You can only buy what is available.

 

ACE harvest grain bread from Canada 

We hit the jackpot today. Six 16 ounce loaves were available for $3.69 each, and we bought 3 for the freezer.  They are often out of stock, or there is just one to buy.

Candy and gum display at the checkout counter

These impulse purchases were mainly empty shelves for the first time. I didn't want to buy any, but that view was strange. I asked the friendly check out lady if she was eating them -- fortunately she thought that was funny.