SUPPLY CHAIN SURVEY: Sunday morning at the supermarket

 SUMMARY:

The empty shelves problem is worse than ever before. Shopping for groceries continues to be a strange adventure. There were 21 rows of Kraft ranch salad dressing today, with one bottle in each row to fill up space. Similar extra wide, shallow displays like that all over the store. Yet there are still more empty shelves than ever. We shop at 6am Sunday when the store opens for business, and a new one week sale begins. Experiments with shopping Friday and Saturday mornings made no difference. 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.

 

Philadelphia Cream Cheese

New record: Zero eight ounce tubs of soft cream cheese where there are usually 200. Past weeks averaged about 60 tubs. My goal was one 8 ounce block of Meijer's plain cream cheese for $1.19, or whatever the price was this week. None available. There were eleven two-packs of 8 ounce blocks of plain Philadelphia cream cheese for $4.49 each.  Was about $4.00 the last time they were in stock. We bought a two-pack. The 1/3 less fat cream cheese I tried last week -- there was no other choice -- doesn't taste as good, but is softer. and much easier to spread.

Soda Pop

Cartons of 24 12 ounce cans of diet Doctor Pepper were on sale for $6.50 each (normally $9.99), but you had to buy five to get that price. Don't ask me why. There were six cases, and I bought five. One left for everyone else today. Still an unusual amount of empty shelves in the soda pop row (for the past month).

 

Breakfast Cereal

A decent supply of raisin bran cereal, finally, but still lots of empty shelves. The cereals highest in sugar are easiest to find. Out of stock of all brands of raisin bran has been an intermittent problem in the past few months.

 

Sugar Free Bread and Butter Pickles

None available. Glad I bought plenty last time, and made some of my own pickles. Bought a large bottle with sugar added, which is about half the price of sugar free. Will replace the sugary brine with the no-sugar brine I saved from the sugar free pickles. I consider pickles a basic food group.

 

Hillsdale Farms packaged sliced ham

A decent selection, but the lower priced Smithfield brand sliced honey ham I was forced to buy last week was good. This week it was only $3.50 for an 8 ounce package, versus $4.99 for Hillsdale. So I bought six -- will stay fresh for months.

 

ACE harvest grain bread from Canada 

None available. We found a $3.69 loaf of another bread from California that I like. But ACE is better. They are often out of stock in the flavor we want.  We have an extra loaf in the freezer.

Ice Cream 

I normally pass right by the ice cream since sugar free ice cream is not great ("fake ice cream"), and often not in stock. Today the ice cream row looked like what I'd imagine in the old Soviet Union. I thought the freezers were broken at first. There were more empty shelves than products for sale. Nothing sugar free available for sale.

Candy and gum display at the checkout counter

These impulse purchases were mainly empty shelves for the first time last week. Even worse this week. I didn't want to buy any candy or gum, but that view was strange.