[Bearshouse]

I have friends in distribution (both groceries and beverages) and have family working for a major chain. What this email says is pretty much what I'm hearing from all of them. I've noticed even Walmart will appear to have full shelves in the gro. dept., but when you look for a particular brand, it's not there anymore. There will be 3 rows of strawberry and plum jelly, but no blackberry or apricot. There will be a tiny section of tea when it used to be a huge selection. Items that I've bought for years are just not available anymore.

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.

[Yardstick]

A grocery store manager told me the other day that the supply trucks have been running late because they were short on drivers. At another grocery store (Krogers) I overheard an employee kvetching about workers being sent home because the trucks weren’t coming. Also noticing the price of bacon seems to have jumped again.