Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

[reymann]

illinois is considering having temperature checks before entering the stores.

[Ohio Man]

The White House Covid 19 coordinator is advising people to not go to the supermarket or pharmacy for 2 weeks. The only way to stop this virus from spreading is for everyone to stay at home.

Walmart has been limiting how many people can be on the store. The lines to get in are outrageous. You will catch coronavirus just by waiting in line with all those sick and coughing people. This morning in Northern California we had torrential rains. I have not seen such fierce rain before in years. There was no cover for the people in line.

The store was much less crowded, but you still could not stay 6 feet away from other people. The aisles are too narrow.

Yesterday, lines fomr Costco were 1 and a half hours. There was also no cover.

I don't like Walmart during the best of times so it's easy for me to stay away. Here in Cincinnati, Kroger is by far the market leader and their stores tend to be at least moderately crowded during all hours they're open.

I would consider having grocery delivery the next week or two. But since we're pretty well stocked on most items at my house, we will probably need one a few things in the next week or two. My plan is to go to an IGA near me on early Thursday morning (not crowded at that hour) and/or Remke, which is only crowded when the hoarders descend on the place in the morning. The prices at these two stores are higher than Kroger or Meijer but we are fortunate enough to be able to absorb the extra cost, at least for a while

[Ohio Man]

illinois is considering having temperature checks before entering the stores.

I don't blame the officials there.

[SamSpade]

Kroger appears to be implementing one-way aisles in urban/small stores. Not sure if it's spread further like Walmart's policy.
Capitol Hill Seattle: QFC aisle markings

Off Topic

PS- for the person mentioning IGA. I miss IGA and independent stores in general.
I guess the closest thing left here left is Grocery Outlet, as it is an owner-operator model.

[SamSpade]

I made a few updates based on Google news updates to my list:

Bolded are new or updated cases.

Kroger - 3 in a Nashville Kroger
1 in Colorado Springs King Soopers
1 in Portland Fred Meyer
1 in Skokie Mariano's

Albertsons - 1 in San Jose Safeway
2 in the Boise area Albertsons
1 in Escondido Albertsons
2 in Bakersfield area Albertsons
1 in New Providence ACME
2 in New England area Shaw's

Ahold Delhaize - 1 in Columbia Heights Giant-MD
1 in Scarborough Hannaford

Schnucks - 1 in St. Louis Schnucks

Whole Foods - 1 in San Francisco Whole Foods
1 in Austin Whole Foods
1 in Richmond, VA Whole Foods
1 in Washington DC Whole Foods

Trader Joe's - 2 in Metairie Trader Joe's
1 in Arlington Trader Joe's
1 in Delray Beach Trader Joe's
1 in Clarendon Trader Joe's
4 in NYC area Trader Joe's
1 in Bakersfield Trader Joe's
1 in Fairfield CT Trader Joe's

Publix - 1 in Boca Publix
3 in Jacksonville area Publix stores

ShopRite - 4 in NJ area ShopRite stores

H-E-B - 1 in San Antonio H-E-B Plus

Wegmans - 1 in Syracuse area Wegmans

WinCo Foods
2 in Tigard, Ore.
One in Oregon City
(source: OregonLive.com)

[storewanderer]

I don't think this is a reflection on the chains where it is happening in any way. It is possible the employees contracted the virus outside work too. No way to prove where it came from.

WinCo has taken major precautions for a while with this virus. They were first to have prepared foods employees wearing masks, first to start limiting how many people could enter the store on busy days, etc. Their stores tend to be large (so people are spaced out) and service is rather limited in their stores.

These employees are very vulnerable due to the heavy customer contact and the grocery retailers need to make some very serious changes to their operation to eliminate customer-employee interaction. Unfortunately I think service levels just need to be cut down to almost nothing in these stores to protect the employees. They should prohibit groups of customers from entering the store. No service departments that are full service (prepack only). Close off the area or aisle being restocked during operating hours. No public restroom. Basically do everything to have as few people in the store as possible and get them out of the store as fast as possible with as little employee interaction as possible. If the store has a drive through pharmacy, serve pharmacy customers ONLY through the drive through. It won't be pleasant but it is what needs to happen.

I mean we even have a tiger in a zoo that has been closed since March 16 contracting this virus. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anim ... bronx-zoo/

[pseudo3d]

I don't think this is a reflection on the chains where it is happening in any way. It is possible the employees contracted the virus outside work too. No way to prove where it came from.

I think there's some correlation. The smaller chains (H-E-B, Schnucks, Wegmans) have a few isolated instances in a few stores, the bigger stores (Albertsons, Kroger) have more cases because they're bigger chains and in more areas, but cases reported in seven different Trader Joe's locations seems like an anomaly.

[storewanderer]

Trader Joe's problem is the stores are too small and have too many customers. It is like shopping in a busy subway in a lot of their locations. Also to add to it they typically stock shelves all day while customers are in the store so there are a lot more employees per square foot in Trader Joes than other retail stores.

I think H-E-B and Schnucks operate so many stores in less densely populated areas which in general have not been hit by this nearly as badly as of this time at least. They also operate much larger stores so people can spread out better. Same for Hy-Vee.

[bayford]

I went to Aldi for the first time in a month today. My local store (in Minnesota) has the design where the carts are kept outside the store next to the entrance. A man was stationed there with a bucket of disinfecting products. When you were done shopping, you returned your cart to him. I'd guess he was a contractor since he wasn't wearing any Aldi apparel and I'd never seen him working in the store before. In addition, all the carts already had their quarter placed into them, so that step of shopping at Aldi had effectively been eliminated.

All the things Aldi mentions on their website that they have implemented inside their stores were indeed in place. Supply looked mostly normal, with the notable exception of paper products and canned fruits, vegetables, and beans. They were completely out of some varieties of beans and vegetables, and other varieties that they did have in stock, instead of an Aldi brand, they were carrying Bush's and Red Gold--two brands that I can't remember ever seeing sold at Aldi. The supply of eggs was also a bit lighter than usual, and there was a sign apologizing for having to raise the price to $0.90/dozen.

[klkla]

I got up early this morning in search of paper towels and toilette paper. No luck at Vons or Ralphs. Then when I was driving home I noticed a guy with both products leaving a new Grocery Outlet store on 6th street. I ran in there but no paper towels. He must have takenthe last one, but they did have some unknown brand of toilette paper, at least.

I really thought that they would have a handle on this by now. I don't understand why they can't have this category stocked, especially with them implementing limits on how many people can buy.