Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

[storewanderer]

There is something about this virus that it multiplies quickly in small crowded spaces. Unfortunately Trader Joe's fits that bill much moreso than almost any other retail outlet I can think of. It is also pretty social in there and people spend a while inside when they shop there.

Compare this to say Aldi which you could say is also a small crowded place. People do not socialize much in there. There are few employees and the few employees say little to nothing to the customers. Checkout is a limited time interaction with items scanned then dumped back into the cart for the customer to deal with getting out of the store.

It may also be something to do with the customer base. Trader Joe's customers seem to skew toward the types that travel heavily, and many who spread this virus have travel history.

[Ohio Man]

Senior hour or early in the morning is the best time to find toilet paper. Even at Walmart some senior friends said there were huge packs of toilet paper at senior hour.

That was my experience this morning during Kroger's senior hour. Unlike Tuesday of last week, they had some toilet paper, not a lot, but some. Predictably, the bigger packs of Charmin were going fast. It seems that a lot of people like Angel Soft as well.

That wasn't the case with bleach, which in my area at least is as scarce as toilet paper. Also, no salt except sea salt without iodine. So I went to an IGA which isn't too far from my home that has two senior hours, not one. And unlike Kroger, they weren't crowded. They had no bleach but did have plenty of the salt I was looking for. I ended up finding bleach at a Dollar Tree in the same small strip mall as the IGA. Not splash free, not a name brand, with lemon scent I don't need, but in these times you can't be choosy.

As an aside, as late as the 80s, and maybe even into the early 90s, IGA stores were the number three player in the Cincinnati market, behind number one Kroger and number two Thriftway (now defunct), although they didn't all have the same ownership. Their presence has dwindled considerably since then.

[TW-Upstate NY]

Made the rounds this morning after hunkering down since last Friday. Being retired, yesterday was payday so first stop was the ATM at a local bank for some cash. First branch I stop at the ATM was down so ended up at another one 3-4 miles away. I'm using the tip of a marker to push the keys and that actually worked pretty well. Did notice that it wouldn't allow me to withdraw what I requested but I have read where people are taking out cash from ATM's as much as they're hoarding toilet paper. After I requested a smaller amount I was off to shop. The first stop was Price Chopper across the street. It was more of a "probing raid" because I planned to shop at their smaller Gloversville store. Who knows maybe I could pick up some toilet paper and guess what-I did. They had maybe 5-6 packs of Charmin left so I purchased my limit of one and left the store. Overall, aside from the "usual suspects" of soap, sanitizer and cleaning and paper products, the place was well stocked. Next stop was the local Wal-Mart and that place looked like an armed camp. There was yellow caution tape surrounding the entrances with shopping cart barriers in front of them. I guess what they're doing is creating only one entrance and exit and I also read they've now established one way traffic in the aisles and heard a rumor they were going to (or are) limit the number of people in the store. I didn't even bother going in and drove off to the other Chopper which had no paper products and meat was kind of sparse but surprisingly they had some roasts marked down so I don't know what was up with that. Store was pretty well stocked except for that and again the usual chronic out of stocks. Pretty much the same story at Hannaford as well and noticed dairy was a little lean here and there. Surprisingly, a local Dollar General had a decent amount of toilet paper with a limit of three. Gotta agree with emerging consensus here that mornings (especially weekdays) are the best time to shop. Guess that's one of the advantages to being retired. Stores aren't that crowded and you can actually stay safely away from each other although again the younger crowd doesn't seem to be taking this as serious as they should. There were some vendors stocking and one's playing on their phone and two guys are talking to each other just inches apart. All the while they're blocking the product I want on the shelf. I must've circled that aisle I don't how many times trying to stay away from them. Even in the best of times that's just downright rude but now it could be fatal as well.

[klkla]

Stop & Shop is donating 5,000 fresh meals a day for health care workers at hospitals in New York and Boston.

https://www.supermarketnews.com/issues- ... -hospitals

[pseudo3d]

Went to the local Kroger today. Since I don't go to it normally, it's hard to know how it weathered. The Easter signage put up seems to be fairly new (complete with the Kroger "Little People"), and the store seems pretty normal (besides paper products, though that had a surprising amount of tissue paper...severely quantity limited though to 1). Starbucks is open but the seating is blocked off. Deli and bakery were mostly operational unlike H-E-B which still is basically no-service...no hot foods from what I could see and a recently installed self-serve frozen mochi case now had them in small cases inside the case. Nearby was some La Brea baguettes that were in the open-air bags. Produce was also business as usual, but the bulk section is closed. Canned foods was clearly running low but no big obvious gaps. Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a hurry when I went in so I didn't really investigate further (can't comment on meats).

[storewanderer]

Kroger was trying to get the stores back to 100% normal for the first of the month. I am not sure if they reopened the closed service meat/seafood at Smiths yet. Smiths deli/bakery was pretty much normal throughout this whole thing other than closing stuff like self serve olive bar. They packaged up single donuts in plastic in a variety of counts; 1, 3, 6, 12 (just like Raleys and Safeway did too) so that was still available.

[Bagels]

I went into Woodward Corner Market this evening, which is Meijer’s brand new upscale offering in Royal Oak, MI. The store was well stocked, but they replaced all the gourmet/premium and unique offerings with standard Meijer options. I assume this is because of availability, but it was disappointing. And obviously the restaurant and bar, the centerpieces of the store, were closed as well.

The property is owned by the adjacent, very large hospital and has a walkway leading into it. There’s a Wahlburgers in the shopping plaza; a local NFL player made a donation so that hospital employees could get a free meal, but they had exhausted their daily allotment and a pair of nurses came here instead... so I covered their meal.

Hopefully next time I return here it will have its normal stock, rather than whatever crap they had to stock it with.

[pseudo3d]

H-E-B's improvement seems to have stalled out--produce looked great, still barely any activity from the deli even if stock has increased in the area. Soda was never a rush item but now has several out of stock items (Sprite Zero, etc.). Didn't check paper products aisle. I did, however, check the handsoap section, and the refills for Softsoap were available. They didn't have a lot of ground beef (the plastic-wrapped, not the chubs) but I was still able to find what I wanted.

Kroger also recently reported a 30% same store sales bump this quarter, yet still recently took on another billion dollars of debt "aid financial flexibility in response to the coronavirus pandemic", which may have been reactionary to any economic turmoil later but makes me wonder about the health of the company.

[Bagels]

H-E-B's improvement seems to have stalled out--produce looked great, still barely any activity from the deli even if stock has increased in the area. Soda was never a rush item but now has several out of stock items (Sprite Zero, etc.). Didn't check paper products aisle. I did, however, check the handsoap section, and the refills for Softsoap were available. They didn't have a lot of ground beef (the plastic-wrapped, not the chubs) but I was still able to find what I wanted.

Kroger also recently reported a 30% same store sales bump this quarter, yet still recently took on another billion dollars of debt "aid financial flexibility in response to the coronavirus pandemic", which may have been reactionary to any economic turmoil later but makes me wonder about the health of the company.

Kroger is preparing now for any adverse effects from the recession. They had record sales last month, but won't reap the full profit from it -- labor costs were high and product costs swelled, but haven't been fully passed onto consumers yet. And they're uncertain if consumers will continue to eat at home, how much food people have stockpiled, etc., so they're preparing for a downfall.

Lately, the stores I've been into have had significantly less foot traffic than they would've, pre-pandemic. Google supports this, with its "live" reports showing a fraction of the usual traffic. Experts were expecting Clearing Out The Grocery Stores: Round 2 to begin today, given that it's the first payday for many professionals since the surge began, but so far, there's no signs of it.

[storewanderer]

Kroger is preparing now for any adverse effects from the recession. They had record sales last month, but won't reap the full profit from it -- labor costs were high and product costs swelled, but haven't been fully passed onto consumers yet. And they're uncertain if consumers will continue to eat at home, how much food people have stockpiled, etc., so they're preparing for a downfall.

Lately, the stores I've been into have had significantly less foot traffic than they would've, pre-pandemic. Google supports this, with its "live" reports showing a fraction of the usual traffic. Experts were expecting Clearing Out The Grocery Stores: Round 2 to begin today, given that it's the first payday for many professionals since the surge began, but so far, there's no signs of it.

This week in NorCal the ads are very weak. Raleys has no $5 Monday. Safeway had no $5 Friday and no in-ad coupons. Both had very weak ad pricing. In NV we have also Smiths (ad is only on the website, they did not mail one out) and that ad has some okay deals but nothing great. Smiths has no "weekend" Digital Specials. Sprouts has a little one page six item ad (had a few deals though, too bad they were out of stock on most of it already yesterday). I am assuming the lack of promotional activity is due to difficulty getting products and maybe a lack of vendor support for such promotions right now.

Also the lousy hours for these stores, like Smiths closing at 8 PM, Sprouts closing at 8 PM, and Wal Mart closing at 8:30 PM, when literally hundreds of people are still trying to shop, is a problem. As the weather warms up and days get longer, people shop later and that is going to look really screwy when the grocery stores are closing before it even gets dark outside. They need to figure out a way to extend their hours to at least 9 PM or 10 PM like most other stores are. Food Maxx is still open until Midnight here (too bad the store is STILL empty of over 50% of dry grocery items as of tonight- absolute joke of a store that I really need to give up on) and Raleys has a number of locations going until 11 PM still. Late night is the best time to shop due to lack of customers in the store.

So this week I will buy a lot fewer groceries. I was suspicious this week would come for the past couple weeks and ad shopped pretty heavily the last couple of weeks while there were still good ads and incentives.

Also as I noted previously I think a lot of stores got a huge surge of business but then lost a lot of business in the following weeks due to an inability to get the shelves restocked quickly. It is great to liquidate and sell off most of your inventory but if you then have empty dry grocery shelves all over the store for the next THREE WEEKS, something tells me whatever sales you gained emptying your shelves, were lost in future weeks. To compound the problem if you have a fully stocked perimeter but then no dry grocery people will not shop your store so you will have major shrink on that perimeter. Also when you run a discount format store in a lower middle class neighborhood and there is zero restocking activity going on late Friday night after the first of the month and after this virus emptied your shelves, I really do not know what to say.