Yes, I love that about Shoprite. BTW, when I was there Monday, they had Bowl & Basket butter in sticks, both salted and unsalted, but only salted in tubs. (And, yes, I checked the sale dairy case.) It’s all hit-and-miss these days.
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The last straw.
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I only food shop at two markets and of products I regularly purchase the only short supply seems to be with gallon containers of bottled water.
I buy wine and spirits at a local small store and at Total Wine. I can survive maybe a year should a sudden wine/spirit apocalypse strike…much longer if I need to ration. 
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Yesterday I did my first grocery shop of 2022, since CSA goods and a farmer’s market pickup covered all we needed these past few weeks. Pleasantly surprised to see that my staple grocery store (Market Basket, which Massachusetts folks will know) was well-supplied. No shortfalls that I could see.
One difference I have noticed this winter: More limited choices in fresh fruit overall. Not sure if that may be due to weather and/or people available to harvest and ship. For example, I look forward to blood oranges and Cara Cara oranges seasonally and haven’t seen either one in my grocery store.
Grateful to everybody who keeps us fed, that’s for sure.
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Oh no - this is dire!
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I’m glad you have your staples prioritzed correctly!!!
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While cranberries were available at Shoprite this holiday season, Costco had none, and I usually buy them in bulk. Also, I can’t remember if grapefruit ever showed up at Costco either.
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Lolol!
There’s an ongoing thread on FB from my mention of MB just being named #3 supermarket in the country, and several local-to-MA posters said that their MBs are low on certain items, others said they were out of things completely. One person said something along the lines of they truck items to the newer stores first (which I don’t believe they’d gyp one store over another) and someone responded saying they don’t have enough trucks at all. I live several miles from the headquarters/warehouse in Tewksbury and drive past it every day on the way to/from work, and believe me, there are PLENTY of trucks leaving the warehouse there! But they do have a lot of stores to cover, so I can see perhaps some stores not getting enough of a supply of items?
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This is a perfect example of items that were scarce near me - Market Basket near me only had about 8 bags, when usually fresh cranberries takes up a large bin close to the holidays. I did not check Hannaford or Wegmans (my other two usual stores), so I don’t know what their supplies were like.
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Super interesting that in-stock positions vary at different Market Basket stores, according to those posters on FB.
The store in Littleton, MA has been my go-to because it’s a bigger, newer store with plenty of space for shoppers to circulate. Also you probably know it’s directly down Rt. 495 from the distribution center, so there’s that. Dunno why my luck was so good.
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I’m bitter at Market Basket for not opening closer to me and generally not being very accessible in my 'hood. I’m just south of Boston, but my local supermarkets had the several large bins of cranberries - organic and non-organic. Kind of crazy the differences.
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Sounds like MB is missing an opportunity to serve more of the South Shore?
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Out here in the middle of nowhere the only shortages I see are at chains.
Safeway/Albertsons is particularly egregious with big gaps in their frozen food aisles.
Our PNW-centric stores don’t seem to share the big boys’ distribution and supply problems.
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Amen- when the covid hospitalization numbers went up before Christmas, I was at Costco- no TP. There was a man next to me, I said “No toilet paper?” He said “It wasn’t here last time I looked for it either!” We got to talking about it, and he said that every time he went there and they had toilet paper, he would get two, just in case the hoarding went psycho again. I asked him if he wanted to sell some, we both laughed, and separated.
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Was at both Petco and my local Market Basket today.
Petco had minimal canned cat food of the grain free type I buy, but enough that I could add to the stash at home. They also had minimal dry cat food. I asked a staff member…he said trucks come Thursday and/or Friday…but he’s the ONLY ONE stocking the shelves, so he was backed up. Fewer people willing to take the job(s). He said the best bet is Monday shopping (the store I go to is 5 minutes from my workplace, so I could go then.
As for MB? I haven’t bought cat food at a supermarket in probably 25+ years…and they were completely cleaned out of canned food when I passed that aisle.
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My regular grocery store only recently added a liquor store (they moved across the highway to a new and larger location and have a liquor area that is bigger than most dedicated liquor emporiums). Nothing locked up, except the ultra expensive bottles, and the registers are quite far away from the aisles.
However, at my go-to liquor store, I noticed that bottles of Hennessey are not on the shelves but there is a sign saying “Available at Register”. I thought this was quite odd, since this was regular Hennessey that retails for under $45. Meanwhile every single other liquor (again, excluding those rare, special bottles) was out on the shelves. I can’t see any reason other than theft for this.
We’re also having trouble finding cat food that our girls like. Unfortunately, they’re terribly picky, so we can’t just buy Friskies and be done with it.
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I’m lucky my guy will eat anything. I just had to switch out both his canned and his dry food because the latter disappeared and the former doubled in price. And he was like, ooh! Good stuff.
Meanwhile, Trader Joe’s did not have any nonfat yogurt of any kind, nor sesame bagels.
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We often use food delivery like Fresh Direct. So I went to Trader Joe’s last weekend and this weekend we went to a megamart by our weekend place. I guess I haven’t been in a grocery store in a while as I was surprised by how empty the shelves were. Sort of stunned actually. I was able to get pretty much most of what I wanted but the gaps in the shelves really was remarkable. Plenty of toilet paper this time though. No hoarding, just lack of supply for many reasons.
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