SUPPLY CHAIN SURVEY: SUNDAY MORNING AT THE SUPERMARKET

NOTE: 

Michigan grocery shopping was too boring for a column until late-2021, when the supply crunch began.  I can't wait for it to end. The supply shortages do take one's mind off the rapid price increases. The price marked on the shelf may be higher than it used to be, but there are no products to buy, That's how you fight inflation, I suppose?  Grocery shopping is now one surprise after another these days.  And none of the surprises are good news.

Ye Editor

 

There is no improvement. We simply can't buy quite a few products we want to buy, as usual. The supply of specific items varies a lot from week to week, but there is no overall improvement.  If the product is available, and has a long shelf life, we'll buy extra in case none are available the next week. That has helped. We used to do that only for products on sale -- great sales at this store. But now we hoard anything we want and will use, regardless of cost.

  Extra wide, shallow rows of items for sale are almost everywhere in the store to fill in empty spaces. We normally shop at 6am Sunday when the store opens for business. This is at the huge Meijer's supermarket in Southfield, Michigan. Previous experiments with shopping Friday, Saturday and Monday morning revealed no differences when compared with Sunday mornings.

 

DETAILS

NOTE: My overall rating is based on my impression of the product supply in the ENTIRE store. Not just the specific items we wanted to buy. The store had a similar amount of empty shelves compared with last week. Disappointing.

+ Paper towels and toilet paper

I have never before seen so many paper towel and toilet paper rolls in one store at any time in my life. No shortages of these products.

 

+ Philadelphia  Cream  Cheese

Wow! 104 eight ounce tubs of soft cream cheese where there are usually about 200 -- there were 58 last week, and 67 the week before. There were 47 eight ounce blocks of cream cheese where there are usually about 100 -- there were 12 last week, and none the week before. 

 

- Coffee

The wife wanted Taster's Choice French Roast flavor coffee. No Taster's Choice available in any flavor for the third week in a row.  Puzzling. There was one bottle available of Folgers instant -- no other bottles in the store. There were some boxes of one serving packets of instant coffee -- very expensive that way -- but none were Taster's Choice brand.

- Snapple  Diet  Iced  Tea

I forgot to mention last week a large bottle was on sale for $1.69 -- a great price -- but they had none for sale in any flavor.  This week there were 6 bottles of Raspberry flavor. None of the diet peach flavor I wanted ... again.

+  Diet  Soda  Pop

Two liters bottles: All three flavors of diet pop that I drink were well stocked. The non-sale price is now $2.19, up from $1.99 (+10%) last week, and up from $1.49 (+47%)  in Fall 2021. There was a similar small amount of empty shelves compared with prior weeks.

 

+ Breakfast  Cereals

A decent supply of raisin bran cereal, although only in one size, of one brand. Most other cereals were well stocked.  Still some empty shelves, as in prior weeks. But they always have plenty of the high sugar content cereals.

 

- Pickles

None of the Meijer's brand pickles in jars were on the shelf for the second week in a row. The stock has never been zero before last week. Also very few Vlasic pickles and other brands. Puzzling. The better tasting Meijer's Kosher low sugar bread and butter pickles in a refrigerated case were well stocked, but they are almost double the price of the Meijer's high sugar non-Kosher non-refrigerated bread and butter pickles (not available for the second week in a row).

+ Plain  Yogurt

Well stocked -- same as last week. The past four weeks were a big improvement from one month ago.

 

+ Packaged deli meats

A good selection. And a good sale too. The $7.50 16 ounce Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh sliced ham and sliced turkey containers were  $5 each.  I bought 5.  Few empty shelves.

 

- ACE harvest grain bread from Canada 

Unusual -- lots of ACE bread available, but only white bread that I never eat. No Harvest Grain flavor. An alternative brand from California, not quite as good, was not available. There was one loaf of a new brand of bread that was heavy enough to be good. Not so good when I saw the price was $6.59 for a small loaf that didn't look very appealing. No bread today.

 

- Ice  Cream 

The ice cream row was about 2/3 full, down from a 2022 record of 7/8 full last week. They had lots of those expensive small containers of high fat high sugar ice cream premium brands -- but almost half empty for the 1.5 quart containers of cheaper brands that I might buy. No sugar free ice cream this week. Last week there were two brands of sugar free ice cream in stock -- one Breyer's Vanilla / Chocolate / Strawberry container, and 5 cartons of another brand ( all vanilla = boring in sugar free ice cream). 

 

- Other Items we wanted to buy:

Lindt chocolate bars -- not one in the store of any flavor for the second week in a row. And a limited selection of other brands. Puzzling. The wife made a special trip to Trader Joe's for her chocolate bar fix. Not Lindt brand, but the cheaper Trader Joe's brand -- cheaper if you don't count the cost of driving there. She claims Trader Joe's has few empty shelves, but they have a limited selection compared with a huge supermarket, so it's always an extra trip to shop at both stores.

 

Dole Classic Cole Slaw -- None in the store. Lucky I had one pound extra from last week. They had the Pearson brand but that's not as crisp and tasty. 

 

+ Candy and gum display at the checkout counter

These impulse purchase shelves were more than three quarters filled up again this week, not the mainly empty shelves I reported one month ago.