Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

This is the place for general and miscellaneous posts on topics which might extend past the boundaries of any specific region. No non-grocery posts.
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storewanderer
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by storewanderer »

Smart & Final is now requiring all customers to wear a "face covering." There is a big sign at the entrance.

Enforcement is by way of the cashier at Register 1 (the entry door 2-3 register lengths away from that register) who yells at anyone who walks in that they have to wear a mask.

Based on what I saw, about 50% of the people trying to shop had no mask, turned around, and left when the cashier yelled at them.

I guess the price increases I saw on a few items like Vinegar up 25% from a few weeks ago, will make up for the lower customer counts.
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by reymann »

the smart & final stores in fresno are using security guards to enforce the masks and are also stopping customers at the door if they try to bring in reusable bags. they are also planning on hiring a second guard to walk the store to enforce social distancing.
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: April 26th, 2020, 12:38 pm
jamcool wrote: April 26th, 2020, 12:19 pm In Arizona the Bashas’ stores are reasonably stocked, still short on paper goods (limit of one on them, and a bunch of smaller brands like Parade and Floria) and cleaners. A lot of unheard of private labels though...Parade, Finest, even IGA items (Bashas’ is a Topco member so their main private brand is usually Food Club)
I wonder where they are getting the Parade stuff from... Parade comes from (at least what used to be) a direct competitor of TopCo. That Parade group also runs a brand called Hy Top. That group still has drug private label too.

Didn't Bashas used to sell Hy Top 20 years ago? Scolaris had that brand in NV until moving to Food Club in the 00's then to C&S Best Yet when they scaled back self distribution about 10 years ago. I never saw that brand in CA or anywhere else on the west coast.
http://www.myparadebrand.com/
Federated Foods owns the Hy-Top and Parade brands.
http://www.fedgroup.com/
Yes, Bashas did use Hy-Top until they switched to Topco brands in 2002 or so.
I'm sure WinCo sold the Hy-Top brand at one time. Menards (midwest home improvement chain) has a grocery section and uses the Parade brand there.
I think Bashas does supply some IGA stores in rural AZ.
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by Super S »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: April 28th, 2020, 3:08 pm
Yes, Bashas did use Hy-Top until they switched to Topco brands in 2002 or so.
I'm sure WinCo sold the Hy-Top brand at one time. Menards (midwest home improvement chain) has a grocery section and uses the Parade brand there.
I think Bashas does supply some IGA stores in rural AZ.
WinCo did in fact have Hy-Top as their private label up until a few years ago when they rolled out their own WinCo private label brand.
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by storewanderer »

Super S wrote: April 28th, 2020, 8:49 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: April 28th, 2020, 3:08 pm
Yes, Bashas did use Hy-Top until they switched to Topco brands in 2002 or so.
I'm sure WinCo sold the Hy-Top brand at one time. Menards (midwest home improvement chain) has a grocery section and uses the Parade brand there.
I think Bashas does supply some IGA stores in rural AZ.
WinCo did in fact have Hy-Top as their private label up until a few years ago when they rolled out their own WinCo private label brand.
I completely forgot about WinCo having Hy Top for a while after they got rid of the Supervalu brands (which happened right after Supervalu bought Albertsons). I did not shop at WinCo much during that time period as I was doing most shopping back then at Smiths and buying very little at other stores.

Also that Hy Top label never made it to the dairy at WinCo as they were using other private labels there (like Lucerne which came and went a couple times and finally went away shortly before the Albertsons/Safeway merger). But the current Tillamook Yogurt at WinCo is manufactured by Safeway.
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: April 28th, 2020, 10:14 pm
Super S wrote: April 28th, 2020, 8:49 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: April 28th, 2020, 3:08 pm
Yes, Bashas did use Hy-Top until they switched to Topco brands in 2002 or so.
I'm sure WinCo sold the Hy-Top brand at one time. Menards (midwest home improvement chain) has a grocery section and uses the Parade brand there.
I think Bashas does supply some IGA stores in rural AZ.
WinCo did in fact have Hy-Top as their private label up until a few years ago when they rolled out their own WinCo private label brand.
I completely forgot about WinCo having Hy Top for a while after they got rid of the Supervalu brands (which happened right after Supervalu bought Albertsons). I did not shop at WinCo much during that time period as I was doing most shopping back then at Smiths and buying very little at other stores.

Also that Hy Top label never made it to the dairy at WinCo as they were using other private labels there (like Lucerne which came and went a couple times and finally went away shortly before the Albertsons/Safeway merger). But the current Tillamook Yogurt at WinCo is manufactured by Safeway.
I seem to remember milk having the Hy-Top label for a while, after the Flavorite brand went away, and possibly a few other things like butter. I do also remember Lucerne at WinCo, (which I always thought was a weird arrangement, especially in areas of Washington and Oregon where Safeway operated), but this went on for a LONG time, even in the pre-WinCo days. Waremart in Boise had Lucerne products in the mid-1980s, at a time when Safeway was gone from Boise for several years. And at the time the Safeway logo was present on the packaging. The thing I remember about Lucerne at Waremart/WinCo was that it was not across the board, but only a few items like yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, etc. To the best of my knowledge Lucerne branded milk was never sold at WinCo. The private label milk was bottled by Andersen Dairy and still is today. WinCo actually sells their brand alongside the Andersen brand at different price points, while Fred Meyer has shifted to one private label brand only here.
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by cjd »

The local Chinese take out restaurant has added a Plexiglas barrier at their counter. There is a tube to pass payment through and a door to pass the food through. The rest is blocked with Plexiglas.
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by storewanderer »

I was in Raleys and Safeway today and both stores were stocked really poorly. Safeway had little traffic, yet, 100% empty paper products aisle, dairy still full of out of stocks, (some items that had been restocked, are gone again now), and tons of outs all over center store. Raleys was also full of out of stocks all over center store, but very busy, and only had 2 checkouts open plus 4 self checkouts and lines going down the aisles (never seen this before in a Raleys), unfortunately in one way and fortunately in another, they had a drug item that I needed to purchase and had been having trouble finding online, so I went and got in line and luckily that self checkout line was all small transactions as I was only in line about 3 minutes despite there being what seemed like 10 people in front of me.

I did notice Raleys has opened all of its entrance and exit doors again so traffic flows normally in/out at least. This was the store previously that was cycling all traffic through the single right side "entrance" door on the right produce side for exit/entrance and has quite a long store front (Wingfield Hills Drive in Sparks).

Meat areas were well stocked in both stores...

The stores seem to be having a very, very hard time recovering from this demand spike in center store. It seems like right as they start to catch up, another round of hoarding starts and clears all the shelves...
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by Alpha8472 »

Costco is returning to regular hours and limiting meat to 3 items per person. The limited hours forced everyone to crowd the stores during limited hours. The return to regular hours may relieve the crowding better.
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Re: Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

Post by storewanderer »

WinCo has filled about 60% of its paper products aisle with summer seasonal goods including plastic stuff, beach towels, toys, and large packs of beer.

They did have in stock napkins, paper towels, and bath tissue in limited brands/sizes. Still limit 1 per customer.
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