I’ve noticed that when a shelf space goes bare for a couple of weeks it returns with 20% less content and a 30% price increase.
They probably figure if they leave the shelves empty for a while, then restock them with the same product, but with a higher price, that most people won't remember how much they payed for the stuff previously.
Several years ago, even before the scamdemic, my local Walmart stopped carrying some of the items that I used to be able to buy off their shelves...like the small DAK canned hams. You could then only buy them if you ordered them through their online site, and you had to order them in a 4-pack, not a single item.
I also used to buy Walmart's maple-flavored sausage patties. Then last fall, they disappeared in all the stores, and were gone for at least 2-3 months. When they showed back up, they were in a different colored package. I figured they'd just changed the package design so I bought a bag. How wrong I was. They must have also changed suppliers, because the new patties had no maple flavor whatsoever, and tasted more like cardboard and sawdust. I threw the bag away, and left a bad review on their store site. That's when I checked out all the other reviews, and found all the negative comments about the change in the patties.