Grocery shopping

(This is not a political post; this is a fact finding post).

I thought of this post early this morning (not at 3 a.m., but about 6 a.m.).  At first I wasn't going to write it because I was too lazy to go to the store to get pictures.  Hubby does the majority (all) of our grocery shopping so I'm rarely in a store these days.  But then, midmorning our DIL text us and told us the wee one and his sister had tested positive for Covid.  Have no worries, they are both doing good.  Just feeling like a cold.  Wee one has a bit of a cough and feels tired.  His sister has about the same symptoms.  We asked DIL if they needed anything and she put together a few items, so we went to the store.  And so I thought, why not.  I will write this post.

(Remember, this is not a political post).

I always ask my hubby when he has gone shopping how the stores are.  Were they crowded? Lots of cashiers working? People wearing masks? That sort of thing.  He always mentioned bare shelves.  Over the past few weeks he mentioned shelves were more bare than previously.  For the most part, he could get what was on the shopping list but sometimes had to buy the brand name of something rather than the perfectly okay generic one because the generic was not available.  

We shop mainly at Wal-Mart and Fry's which is a local food chain.  It is part of the Kroger family.  The pictures featured below are from Fry's.  They are literally around the corner from where we live and although a few pennies more than Wal-Mart, we tend to use them for convenience items if we don't want to go to Wal-Mart which can be more crowded at times.

Our DIL had a simple list.  Children's Motrin, orange juice, chicken noodle soup, tomato soup and cough drops (not cherry flavored ones).  The wee one threw in that he wanted Dorito's so I asked what chips his sister wanted and she said Hot Cheetos.  So we added those to the list.

As we walked the aisles to get their stuff plus a few of the things we wanted, I snapped pictures of the empty spaces on shelves.   

Canned fruit aisle..

More canned fruit.  

Juice.

I think this was the soup aisle.  We actually could find everything on our DIL's list except for Campbell's chicken and noodle soup.  We had bought some premade soup over at the deli with chicken noodle and tomato as I know our DIL likes those, but wanted to get canned soup for the kids as they like those.  We had to substitute double noodle soup for the chicken and noodle soup which was double noodles with chicken broth (no chicken).  The majority of the Campbell soups were wiped out.  Very slim pickings.

Eggs were kind of wiped out too.  Not much choice there.

Same with the refrigerated cookies and other pastries.  (Not that we needed those).

Even the candy had gaps in their items!! We  may or may not have bought some little Hershey bars.......

However, the wine aisle seemed relatively stocked! Unfortunately we aren't drinking in the month of January.  

So I'm curious.  How are the shelves at your stores?  Well stocked, holes between items, bare?  Are you able to find everything you are looking for at one store or do you have to drive around to other places to get it all?  

I know some of this may be blamed on bad weather in parts of the country are having or on shortage of staff with Covid and the like.  But we've been having bare/empty shelves for a few months.  I found this fascinating article about food supply disruptions.  A lot of it made sense.  

Anyway, I know our president mentioned that shelves are 89% full.  But I'm thinking ours don't quite add up to that.  Maybe I'm wrong about that.  

I think it will get worse before it gets better.  But again, I could be wrong.  

(Again, this is not a political post but a fact finding one).