Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

[Ohio Man]

Has anyone checked out the early store hours that a lot of supermarkets and other places (pharmacies, Big Lots, etc.) have reserved--at least in theory--for seniors and other at risk groups?

I was at the local Target last Wednesday during that time. I haven't checked lately, but the original policy was Wednesday mornings only from 8-9. I absent-mindedly forgot that and walked right in. I felt bad about it for all of 2 seconds because there were people in there old enough to be my adult children (I'm 57 by the way). They seemed to outnumber seniors as well by a wide margin. Store employees were not stopping them either although some of that might stem from how thinly Target staffs their stores. Personally, I think it's a wonderful policy and if I had been asked to leave I would've complied and probably even apologized for being there when I shouldn't. Glad to see lots of stores in my area are doing this as well.

Yeah, I wouldn't have felt that bad about it if there were a lot of younger people abusing the policy, and even then, at 57 you're close enough to the age. IIRC, Walgreens, or at least a lot of their locations, have set the minimum "seniors" age at 55.

I haven't heard about any retailer checking ages. It could be, as you say, because of a lack of staff.

[pseudo3d]

One major annoyance: no toilet paper. The hoarding mentality is really getting on my nerves. No one needs that much of it. IMO, a lot of jerks are buying a ton of it in the hope it will get very scarce and they can make a killing reselling it.

I'd like to think the opposite is going to happen. A lot of people have bought enough to last them for months and in some instances years. When we get back to even a small degree of normalcy, nobody is going to want the stuff and hopefully those jerks will be stuck with it all. Before this all started, it was not uncommon to find it on sale every week somewhere and some stores pretty much ran specials on it every week. If you use a particular brand, all you had to do was be patient because eventually your favorite store would have it on sale. And that pretty much goes for just about everything in short supply right now. The happy talk coming out of DC right now is the economy will come roaring back once this is under control but I just don't see it for grocers. There is so much hoarded product out there right now that some people will have no need to set foot in a supermarket for a very long time. I could see some companies actually seeing this as an opportunity to reduce store count long-term.

People are always going to need fresh meat, produce, etc. that hoarding won't do. Even if the problem ended soon and paper products became available again (as well as stores returning to full capacity, at H-E-B now, the bakery and deli are now closed...probably service meat and seafood soon). The big problem I see now is that with so much of the supply chain being depleted that the excess inventory that would normally be taken by Grocery Outlet and other discount stores, would be shunted to a retailer's own stores to sell off, and that could really hurt those stores in the short term.

[TW-Upstate NY]

Just read a story that the company that makes Peeps candies is shutting down for a while. Look for them to be the next thing people will buy in massive quantities and then soon to pop up on E-Bay at ridiculously inflated prices.

[CalItalian]

From the coupon groups that I participate in on Facebook and Slickdeals.net, and from talking with supermarket employees and hearing from older friends & relatives, the senior hours at stores, while well intentioned, are drawing large crowds. Both seniors and their helpers. Probably the worst time to shop now for a variety of reasons including whatever was intended for social distancing.

[CalItalian]

Will there be hams this Easter? They usually start going on sale now?

I was in Vons in Torrance, California yesterday. They had lots of hams and lots of frozen turkeys. Since the turkeys were manager specials, I am going to guess they are leftover from Thanksgiving.

As for this particular Vons, which is on Crenshaw Blvd. in Torrance, it has a long way to get back to normal. First off, I haven't been in this store for maybe a year and it's had a (poor) remodel since I was in last (has the same poor lighting from Safeway days & flooring wasn't touched). This is a rather large Vons but has never been busy & was not yesterday either at 4:30 PM. Glad to see self-checkout was put back in, though.

This was the first store of any chain, in weeks, that I have been into in either California or Nevada that had cases of water. Plenty of cases of water from all brands including Albertsons own - Signature Select Refreshe 24 & 32 packs. But the rest of the store with the exception of meat and produce was a complete disaster. Dairy was nearly non-existent, paper products none, baby products none, even canned goods and boxed side dishes were almost completely wiped out.

I overheard a conversation between a shopper and a produce guy who was doing an excellent job getting the produce department back to near normal. He said that they are supposed to limit to a maximum of 100 shoppers in the store at any time but the store manager doesn't want to monitor it. They weren't nor did they have anything set up to monitor it. But I doubt while I was in the store there was anywhere close to 100 customers, anyway.

[CalItalian]

Stater Bros. has something on their minimal 2 page ad & coronavirus statement starting on 3/25 that I would never have put in an ad. It will only cause hoarding.

"We will remain OPEN as long as we can provide a SAFE shopping experience for our customers and employees"

That alone would scare me enough to hoard.

[Bagels]

From the coupon groups that I participate in on Facebook and Slickdeals.net, and from talking with supermarket employees and hearing from older friends & relatives, the senior hours at stores, while well intentioned, are drawing large crowds. Both seniors and their helpers. Probably the worst time to shop now for a variety of reasons including whatever was intended for social distancing.

When I was last in Albertsons, the recording said the early hours applied to seniors and anybody with a compromised immune system, no questions asked. I imagine it'd be like Southwest Airline's, where a large number of people insist they require a wheelchair or other special assistance in order to preboard... then miraculously sprint on their own while departing the flight.

I was in Vons in Torrance, California yesterday. They had lots of hams and lots of frozen turkeys. Since the turkeys were manager specials, I am going to guess they are leftover from Thanksgiving.

Every Albertsons, Pavilions and now Walmart I've been into has a large quantity of turkeys. Walmart also has a large selection of traditional, Holiday pantry items (stuffing, canned yams, etc.) in a "Manager's Special" aisle. Like you, I thought this was last year's inventory, but then I did some quick research, because there's just too much, and they would've been cleared out by now (through a liquidator or whatnot): it's cheaper to breed, slaughter, freeze, ship and store turkeys year-round than it is to do it in one season. Turkeys destined for the dinner table this year... began arriving last November.

Grocery stores have tried to reduce inventory levels in recent years, but Holiday items continue to be an exception. Albertsons and Walmart are simply moving Holiday inventory now... it doesn't look like the turkeys are selling well, so I assume that individual stores will ultimately store them. That's valuable freezer space for grilling season..

[Bagels]

I stopped at the Albertons in Irvine (Quail Hill). They're still not handing out Monopoly tickets, despite having boxes of them on each cash register. They didn't have the item I wanted, so I drove a couple miles further to the Westpark location. Both locations had a decent selection, including plenty of water. The Westpark location had the items I wanted and IS handing out Monopoly tickets, so my kids were happy... we'll probably get more free doughnuts and bagels tickets that we're unable to redeem at the moment . Surprisingly, most of the turkeys we were discussing earlier have been sold, and they've brought out other brands.

It's interesting looking at the unique items they're stocking to meet demand. There's items in the bakery and deli that look like something you'd find at Solomente 99 store in Santa Ana. There's heat-and-serve meals made by some local third party. There's products you don't see, including Chicago's Vienna Beef Hot Dogs, which were dropped locally in the past couple years. And there's meat products you don't usually see; here's the first time I've see rabbit sold at Albertsons:



Guess that's one way to bring the Easter bunny to dinner!!!

[storewanderer]

It looks like many grocers aren't publishing circulars this week. Usually they're published on Flipp (which now "powers" ad displays direct on many grocers' websites) by now, but that's not the case. Stater Bros. has a one page ad with a narrative on the situation, soda, alcohol ... and frozen turkeys!!!

Smiths still has a small ad that has obviously been abbreviated but looking at the ad they will probably have most/all of the stuff in the ad in stock, and Safeway NorCal has a usual large ad with probably numerous items they will not have in stock at least not early in the sale. Smiths ad has a photo of Kroger CEO in a Kroger Uniform.

[storewanderer]

Stater Bros. has something on their minimal 2 page ad & coronavirus statement starting on 3/25 that I would never have put in an ad. It will only cause hoarding.

"We will remain OPEN as long as we can provide a SAFE shopping experience for our customers and employees"

That alone would scare me enough to hoard.

That is a pretty odd statement to make. Is the industry expecting some kind of outbreak in the stores that will cause the stores to close? Maybe they want to give their employees a breather in this mess?

Maybe in some cases closing the stores for a week will be the only way to get restocked.