Posted on 09/28/2021 2:31:57 PM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
The supply chain crisis that our supermarkets are facing is far worse than the mainstream media has been telling us. The mainstream media keeps trying to put a happy face on the “temporary” shortages, but an industry insider has let me know what is really going on behind the scenes. This particular insider runs a grocery store in Maine, and he says that things are as bad as he has ever seen. In fact, he says that he has “never seen anything close to what is happening now”. The email that he sent me the other day greatly alarmed me, and I asked him if I could share it with all of you. He gave me permission to do so, as long as I didn’t use his name. I haven’t received an email this startling in a long time. As you read this email, I think that you will quickly understand why I am saying that…
I’m self employed for 25 years, now, independent IGA affiliated grocery store in coastal Maine.
Supply issues are real! My supplier has limited us on orders for about a month now (limited the physical number of cases we can order)
Their issue is/was mainly the help crisis in their warehouse … order pickers and truck drivers. Same story everywhere, I know. Many of the items your reader commented about in this article are the same here … very limited gatorade, and gallon water is sketchy at best. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don’t. I’ve not seen many supply issues in produce, rather poor quality issues there. Much more than normal. Deli / bakery … yes, lots of out of stocks and “long term unavailable” as my supplier likes to word it on the invoice.
In the center store – dry grocery … like others are saying, tons of out of stocks.
Meat supply is “fair” but pricing is extremely high. Shockingly high to me. The middle class is slowly being destroyed with these prices hikes … death by 1000 cuts of sorts, I guess.
My Frito Lay delivery person tells me that he is getting 55-60% of what he’s ordering. My last Nabisco order had 30% out of stocks. Over the years, we always get 99-100% of what was ordered. Pepperidge Farm Cookies … he tells me some weeks he’s only getting HALF of what he orders. These folks all work on commission …. if they don’t (or can’t) sell it to me … they don’t get paid. Or get paid less. When we place our liquor order (twice a week) out of stocks there are running 30% most orders. This commodity was ALWAYS 99.5 to 100% fill rate over the years …. always.
It’s frustrating. As I said … self employed 25 years, and worked for Kroger for 25 years before that … so 50-51 years in this business.
Never seen anything close to what is happening now. Add to that — a far left governor, and both houses here in Maine democrat controlled …. I just know we are on the verge of another mask mandate, and a lock down of sorts would not surprise me again as we move into the colder months. As you’ve seen I’m sure, Maine is in the news with COVID case surges (so they say)
I come to work every day just holding my breath for what is next … for our business and the 35 people I employ here in Maine.
This industry insider is trying to order normal quantities, but his suppliers are often unable to completely fulfill them.
As you can see from the email, the shortages are widespread, and this is the worst that they have been during the entire pandemic so far.
If there is something that you need to stock up on, I would grab it if it is still on the shelves, because pretty soon it may be completely gone.
On Friday I went to the grocery store and they were out of several things that I wanted to purchase. Unfortunately, we continue to get more confirmations that this is going to become the “new normal”.
For example, according to Bloomberg meat reserves in this country have plunged to dangerously low levels…
A U.S. report Wednesday showed beef reserves down 7.7% from a year ago in August. Poultry supplies slumped 20% and pork bellies, which are sliced into bacon, dropped 44% to the lowest levels since 2017.
In most cases supermarkets still have meat on the shelves, but it is definitely a lot more expensive than it used to be, and we are being told to brace ourselves for more price hikes in the months ahead.
Of course other types of retailers are facing severe supply shocks as well. A few days ago, another reader sent me an email in which he described what he is seeing at his local pharmacy…
The big issue, however, is at the local drug store; Rite Aid. The place is thin at best and stripped in some areas (last week there was no Zinc available). The beer cases are notably sparse. The main issue, however, is at the pharmacy. Six or eight months ago you could walk in and have your prescription filled inside of 20 minutes. If you called in the prescription the day before it was waiting for you. Not so any more. Yesterday I went to pick up an RX for my wife that had been called in last week. Not only was it not ready but I had to wait an hour before it was filled. There were nine cars in the drive up queue. I opted to walk in and it was nearly as bad. The young woman that helped me was clearly not local with bicolor hair and a large, glaringly obvious, in your face, Baphomet symbol around her neck.
I had a chat with the manager on the way out and asked him what was up with the Pharmacy staffing. I hadn’t seen the regular pharmacist for a few months. He blamed it all on the city for not having any affordable housing (lame) and mentioned that Albertson’s pharmacy, Albertson’s and Ridley’s were all very short on help (true).
Right now, dozens and dozens of drugs are in short supply.
In fact, the official FDA drug shortage list has 149 entries on it right now.
That is the most that I have ever seen.
As shortages persist, retailers are going to start implementing more limits. Last week, we learned that Costco has already started to pull the trigger…
Costco on Thursday said it was reinstating limits on purchases of toilet paper, paper towels and bottled water.
They don’t call it “rationing”, but that is essentially what it is.
And we are also being told to expect significant price increases, because supply chain issues are causing costs to go through the roof…
Costco this week joined the long list of retailers sounding the alarm about escalating shipping prices and the accompanying supply chain issues. The warehouse retailer, which had a similar cautionary tone in May, was joined by athletic wear giant Nike and economic bellwethers FedEx and General Mills in discussing similar concerns.
The cost to ship containers overseas has soared in recent months. Getting a 40-foot container from Shanghai to New York cost about $2,000 a year and a half ago, just before the Covid pandemic. Now, it runs some $16,000, according to Bank of America.
I have been warning that rampant inflation and shortages were coming for a long time, but a lot of people didn’t want to believe me at first.
If you were one of those doubters, do you believe me now?
During the first half of this year, many economic optimists assured us that the U.S. economy would be “booming” by this point.
But instead our economic infrastructure is being shaken on a very basic level, and we are facing enormous price hikes and very painful shortages throughout the rest of this year and into next year.
Events have begun to slide out of control, and it certainly wouldn’t take too much to push us into a full-blown avalanche.
I have not been able to get pseudophedrine for months now at the QFC/Kroger pharmacy. Last time I bought some at Rite Aid, they only had two boxes.
Yeah—the weirdness was what we saw in the Carter years—seemingly no rhyme or reason—and the retailer would be just as confused as everybody else.
The trick is that there will be overstocks of some items because of the craziness—and that is the time to grab more than you need if they are durable—because six months later they may be unavailable.
I’m in the process of renovating one of my apartment complexes.
Try fining a good seller toon of blue electrical boxes. Or switches. Or 14/2 wire. Or many plumbing materials.
I go in a couple times a week to see what they have and stock up. There is a shortage of all types of things.
It isn’t a scam. If there was money to be made by supplying the demand someone would do it. Capitalism works. It works until the government gums up the works. When government pays people more to stay at home than they can get at work the people don’t go to work. If people don’t go to work the work doesn’t get done, or the owners of companies start competing with the government by offering higher wages which cause the prices to go up. As long as people need what the higher prices can give them it works, eventually the government pay is lower than business and we all pay more for everything, it is called inflation and is mostly brought about by government printing money.
The government can pay whatever it wants because they have an endless supply of money that they print as needed. People on fixed incomes, old people, retired people pay the price. They can’t get a raise, their savings keep getting devalued to the point where the old people have to depend on the government for handouts just like the millions of illegal immigrants, just like the people unwilling to work. This is all by design, it is designed to make everyone glad to have welfare, but it is really socialism.
Welcome to reality, the left is winning.
Nothing about the real cause
I continue to work one job but left my other job for personal reasons like moving to a new location.
I keep one job which puts me around pharmacists and the vaccine.
They got plenty of Pfizer for you so to speak.
No vaccine mandate yet in my line of work with my employer but if that happens I’m out the door.
I won’t be working.
Not because I’m lazy but because of my convictions about vaccine coercion.
I have no objection to the vaccine but no one should be forced.
I can also manage financially for the moment but again the more the vax is pushed perhaps some will choose not to work out of their convictions like I will.
I just don’t understand why people put abbreviations for words like back order when your phone will give you the whole word if you type the first two letters. You would just have to type b or and there it is.
I cannot get my guy to come and cut my lawn. He says nobody wants to work.
“many economic optimists assured us that the U.S. economy would be “booming” by this point”
They’re not economic optimists. They’re leftists. They are “optimistic” every time a Democrat gets elected, and doomsayers every time a Republican gets elected, and they are usually wrong on both counts.
I’ve noticed that stocks of goods are erratic.
There are more bare spots on shelves than I’m used to seeing and there appears to be no rhyme or reason to it.
I am in sales for a northeast c-store distributor. Just because you don’t see the concrete reason for the shortages in the article, they do exist. Every week we get a report that is called “covid shortages”. Out of stocks, allocation, transportation issues, labor shortages, raw material shortages. Just some examples. It is going to get worse in the next 6 months. A LOT OF PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO WORK, from taking stuff out of the ground, to harvesting, to transporting, to manufacturing, to again transporting to distrbutors, to warehoue order pickers, to delivering to retail outlets.
I tell people I know, if you have a favorite box of cookies or planning to buy a big screen tv (an example), buy it now ‘cuz it may not be there next week.
I’d also point out that a story from Maine may be representative of a lot of areas, but Maine has been a real outlier in a lot of respects for decades. Between the cold weather and the sparse population across most of the state, it’s not the kind of place everyone wants to live ... so there’s been a general stagnation in the population there for as long as I can remember.
The supply of gatorade and other beverages (booze)at the golf course yesterday was limited due to supply chain issues.
“I just don’t understand why people put abbreviations for words like back order when your phone will give you the whole word if you type the first two letters. You would just have to type b or and there it is.”
First world problems.
I even noticed empty shelves in my local dollar store when I used to have to walk around the shelf stockers all the time. I don't have cats but I feed 3 semi wild cats. Suddenly the food I buy for them is not available. I finally checked at Tractor Supply and had to buy a 20 lb bag.
Thanks for posting this.
Have not seen the shortages here...yet. Just keep hearing about it.
My vendors for my tiny $700K sales a year pizza restaurant are constantly out of basics. Paper, food, etc. I can get plenty of Italian sausage but not regular pork sausage. Two weeks ago they were out of pepperoni.
Cost have risen for everything.
how many of our ports does chyna own? also both ends of the panama canal?
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