SUPPLY CHAIN SURVEY 4/10/22: 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 prices marked on the shelves may be higher than they used to be, but if there are no products available to buy, I suppose the price inflation doesn't affect you? That's how you fight inflation? Grocery shopping is one surprise after another these days.  And few of the surprises are good news.

Ye Editor

 

The store had a similar amount of empty shelves, compared with last week, but the "Limit 2" signs have significantly expanded. "Limit 2" signs now on all Jif peanut butter  (shelves half empty), Meijers pickles (very few available), Vlasic pickles (one dozen jars available) and some other products. As "usual", we can't buy some products we want to buy. That has not changed in six months. Extra wide, shallow rows of items 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 Meijers supermarket in Southfield, Michigan. Previous experiments with shopping Friday, Saturday and Monday morning revealed no differences when compared with Sunday mornings.

 

NOTE: My overall rating is based on my impression of the product supply in the ENTIRE store. Not just the specific items we want to buy. 

 

 Paper towels and toilet paper

An enormous display of paper towels, but toilet paper rolls were not fully stocked, for the second week in a row.

 

Philadelphia  Cream  Cheese

78 eight ounce tubs of soft cream cheese where there are usually about 200 -- prior weeks were 73, 104, 58 and 67. There were about 100 eight ounce blocks of cream cheese where there are usually about 100 -- prior weeks were100, 47, 12 and none. And they were on sale for $2 each, too. But no Meijers brand blocks, which are significantly cheaper, if you can ever find them.

 

- Coffee

No Taster's Choice available in any flavor for the fifth week in a row. I checked online -- Taster's Choice is still being made by Nestle's. Puzzling. There were 5 large bottles of Maxwell House for $10 each and about one dozen large bottles of Folgers for $9 each. The wife passed on those brands, not knowing what they tasted like. There were some boxes of one serving packets of instant coffee -- very expensive that way -- but none were Taster's Choice brand.

+ Snapple  Diet  Peach

After three weeks with none available, including two weeks "on sale" for $1.69 each, there were six available for $2.29 each -- a miracle.  I bought one diet Peach flavor.

- Diet  Soda  Pop

Two liters bottles: All three flavors of diet cherry coke pop that I drink were well stocked. Three different prices for three different diet cherry coke flavors: $1.59 each for Dr. Pepper, versus $2.19 each for Pepsi and Coke. Puzzling. There were more empty shelves compared with prior weeks.

 

- Breakfast  Cereals

A small supply of Kellog's raisin bran cereal in only one size. No other brands or raisin bran cereal. Still some empty shelves, as in prior weeks. But they always have high sugar content cereals.

 

- Jars of Pickles

Almost entirely empty shelves. There were 12 jars of various types of Vlasic pickles. No Meijers' brand for the fourth week in a row. There were some very expensive pickles -- $8 a jar, versus less than $4 for Meijer's and Vlasic. The expensive brands were a small number of McClure's and Safie bottles.... The better tasting Meijer's Kosher low sugar bread and butter pickles in a refrigerated case were almost gone, with a sign saying "Limit 2" for the second week in a row. But they cost about 50% more than Meijer's high sugar non-Kosher non-refrigerated bread and butter pickles would be, if they ever had any for sale. I can't figure out the pickle shortage. I buy some fresh pickle size cucumbers to make my own pickles every week -- there's no shortage of those small cucumbers -- they are always available. I also buy some "store bought" pickles to eat while my own pickles are "brewing", which takes about a week.

- Plain  Yogurt

Some empty shelves compared with extremely well stocked (normal) shelves last week. The past month was a big improvement from earlier in 2022.

 

Packaged deli meats

A good selection. Oscar Mayer 16 ounce sliced turkey was on sale for $4.99 each. versus a regular price of $7.49 each. I bought four. Just like the good old days -- on sale and well stocked. Of course we shop in the first hour of the weekly sale, so they should not be sold out of a sales item immediately, but sometimes they are.

 

+ Easter spiral sliced ham 

Every year we buy a Cook's ham of about 7 to 10 lbs. There's a big bone inside so maybe that's half the weight? The wife soaks it in warm water to remove some salt, then we coat it with the package of glaze that comes with it. The miracle is the sale price has always been 89 cents s pound. The double miracle is it was still 89 cents a pound today -- $6.92 for 7.8 pounds of spiral sliced ham this year, in spite of so much inflation!  And we bought one.

 

- ACE harvest grain bread from Canada 

There were a limited selection of ACE bread loaves available, but only white bread that I never eat. No Harvest Grain flavor. No other choices for whole wheat non-sliced bread at any price. A clerk told us the dough is shipped in from Canada and they bake it in the store. That would explain why it was still warm a few times when we bought it ... long ago. We're out of ACE, so we bought whole wheat pita bread from the deli department. They taste okay, not great, but they get stale in a few days, even if you refrigerate them.

 

- Ice  Cream 

A disaster. Even the wife, who does not eat ice cream, immediately noticed the change from last week. Back to 1/2 stocked, from 7/8 full the week before (a six month record), and 2/3 full two weeks ago. No sugar free ice cream. 

 

- Other Items we wanted to buy:

Lindt chocolate bars -- A limited selection. but they included a few bars of the flavor the wife could not find for the past four weeks. A limited selection of other brands. Puzzling.

 

Dole Classic Cole Slaw -- None available. Good thing I bought all four one pound bags last week to make my own cole slaw (with no sugar). This week I bought a two pound bag of the Pearson brand, but that's not as crisp and tasty as Dole. The very expensive organic brand does not look good in the bag. Not bleached cabbage, I suppose.

 

 Candy and gum display at the checkout counter

These impulse purchase shelves were about two thirds full, about the same as last week. More than three quarters full two weeks ago. Two months ago there were mainly empty shelves.