SUPPLY CHAIN SURVEY: SUNDAY MORNING AT THE SUPERMARKET 4/3/22

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 they used to be, but if there are no products to buy, the inflation doesn't affect you. That's how you fight inflation, I suppose?  Grocery shopping is one surprise after another these days.  And few of the surprises are good news.

Ye Editor

 

There was a minor improvement this week. But once again we can't buy some products we want to buy. That has not changed.

The supply of many items varies a lot from week to week. 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 will eventually use, regardless of cost.

  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 Meijer's 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 wanted to buy. The store had a slightly smaller amount of empty shelves compared with last week. 

- Paper towels and toilet paper

An enormous display of paper towels but toilet paper rolls were not fully stocked for the first time in months.

 

+ Philadelphia  Cream  Cheese

73 eight ounce tubs of soft cream cheese where there are usually about 200 -- prior weeks were 104, 58 and 67. There were about 100 eight ounce blocks of cream cheese where there are usually about 100 -- prior weeks were 47, 12 and none. No Meijers brand blocks, which are cheaper.

 

- Coffee

The wife wanted Taster's Choice French Roast flavor coffee. No Taster's Choice available in any flavor for the fourth  week in a row.  Puzzling. There were a few bottles of Maxwell House decaf on the store -- no other instant coffee in a jar choices. 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

None. After two weeks on sale for $1.69, with none available, there was now no Snapple tea in the store of any flavor. Last week there were 6 bottles of Raspberry flavor with sugar. None of the diet peach flavor I wanted.

+  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%) two weeks agp, 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, with two brands available, up from one brand last week. Most other cereals were well stocked.  Still some empty shelves, as in prior weeks. They always have plenty of the high sugar content cereals.

 

- Pickles

Almost entirely empty shelves. There were 5 jars of some spicy hot Vlasic pickles I suppose no one wanted. No Meijers' brand for the third 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: 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 well stocked, with a new sign saying "Limit 2". but they cost about 50% more than Meijer's high sugar non-Kosher non-refrigerated bread and butter pickles would be, if they had any for sale.

+ Plain  Yogurt

Extremely well stocked -- even better than last week. The past month was a big improvement from earlier in 2022.

 

+ Packaged deli meats

A good selection. Oscar Mayer Carving Board slow cooked ham is normally $4.39 for 7.5 ounces. It's thick slices like a spiral sliced ham. Today the price was 2 for $5.39. I wanted one, but at that price I bought six. Very few empty shelves.

 

- ACE harvest grain bread from Canada 

Again there were lots of ACE bread loaves available, but only white bread that I never eat. No Harvest Grain flavor. There were two loaves LA Brea Bakery whole grain bread from California, slightly cheaper, but not quite as good. We bought both loaves. No other choice. 

 

+ Ice  Cream 

The ice cream row was at least 7/8 full, up from 2/3 full last week, and the best so far this year. There were six cartons of Breyer's Vanilla / Chocolate / Strawberry, versus one the week before. And they were on sale for $3.50, versus the regular price of $4.79. I bought two. No other sugar free ice cream. 

 

- Other Items we wanted to buy:

Lindt chocolate bars -- not one in the store of any flavor for the third week in a row. A limited selection of other brands. Puzzling.

 

Dole Classic Cole Slaw -- Four 16 ounce packages in the store. I bought all of them. There were none last week. They had Pearson brand, but that's not crisp and tasty. And a very expensive organic brand that did not look good. Not bleached cabbage, I suppose.

 

- Candy and gum display at the checkout counter

These impulse purchase shelves were about two thirds full, compared more than three quarters filled up last week. One month ago there were mainly empty shelves.