Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

[Alpha8472]

The FoodMaxx in Antioch, California had to close at 10 pm due to shoplifting. There were roving packs of juvenile shoplifters and only 1 security guard. It was a scary place. Customers were scared and leaving without buying anything.

Perhaps they dont want to restock so that the shoplifters won't have as much to ransack.

I visited a Safeway near closing time in a much nicer neighborhood and everything except for paper goods was reasonably well stocked. I was shocked. There were lots of enployees restocking.

I also visited a Lucky in Dublin, California a little bit earlier the same day and it was quite well stocked too except for pasta, paper goods, and some canned goods. It really depends on the income level of the neighborhood. Nicer areas seems to be better stocked.

[cjd]

I went to Publix again this week. The store seemed better stocked than before, a lot more milk and dairy product, and the store brand soda, while still having some missing varieties, had the ones I had been looking for that were out prior.

There were green plastic towers placed around the store stating "Let's be safe - stay 6 feet apart"

Also blue tape has been put on the floor at the checkouts to maintain distancing. The signs on the counters are still there. One thing I was a little surprised about was the Plexiglas shields have not been installed, at least in this store. Winn Dixie stated they would have them in all stores by the 3rd. Not sure if they got theirs all done, but Publix has not.

All in all I didn't spend much time in the store, it just makes me very uncomfortable anymore and I feel like it's just dirty. I did buy an apple pie in the bakery (it was still quite warm too!) and noticed as I was buying it the clamshell packaging is not sealed on the sides. If you lift up, there is a gap on each side, which I didn't usually give much thought to in the past, but now it bothers me.

[Super S]

I stopped in Fred Meyer last night for a gallon of milk. They were completely out of milk. I decided to go to Safeway across the street. (I visit this Safeway maybe once a year) I did find milk, but a gallon of Lucerne milk was a DOLLAR more than the same variety of Fred Meyer milk. I rarely shop at Safeway as I think their prices are too high, and I don't like having to deal with price gimmicks. What surprised me though was how low the staffing level was, this store lacked self checkouts and had only one register open (with one more closed but finishing a transaction), the only clean spot on the checkstand was the new plexiglass shield (I handed my milk to the cashier instead of setting it on the belt), and they were making customers bag their own groceries. This visit to Safeway had me wondering how they can keep three locations open in an economically stagnant town. It also partly explains why other stores have been out of stock often on items...people are flocking to the stores with lower prices as the economy is uncertain.

Next time Fred Meyer is out of milk I won't be buying it at Safeway.

[mjhale]

I'm in the DC area. Safeway is the closest grocery store to me. Believe it or not it is still open 24 hours. However all of the other nearby Safeway stores are now closing at Midnight. Since the panic buying the store has slowly recovered. But forget paper products. The entire aisle has been completely empty since late February. Detergents are very hit and miss. And of course sanitizers, wipes, rubbing alcohol and things like that are completely gone with signs that there is no estimate on when they will return. Center store is much better than even a couple of weeks ago. The out of stocks seem to continue with soups, flour and sugar. Deli is still open for sliced meats and cheeses but there are no longer any prepared foods available. Rolls, bagels and donuts are now in prepackaged boxes. Interestingly the fresh fish counter is still open but the meat department case is closed. I started to see improvement in store conditions once they finally (!) implemented purchase limits on high traffic items. As I said in a post way earlier in this thread why grocery stores didn't implement purchase limits earlier when they saw certain things fly off the shelves is beyond me. Without purchase limits they allowed their stores to get cleared out to the detriment of those who weren't or couldn't shop at the time the coronovirus situation got serious.

As for the weekly ad, the one that is currently in effect is the first one that is significantly reduced in its scope. All of the ads up until now have been the normal multi-page, filled with coupons and BOGO offers that Safeway seems to love. Now it is four pages with the thank you to the community, thank you to the employees and ads for delivery and pickup services. The remaining two pages have less than two dozen total offers. One thing that I noticed was a buy one get one free on Land O Lakes butter. When I ran in for a few things Friday afternoon there was not a large amount of the sale butter to purchase. Normally a buy one get one free on Land O Lakes puts the price below Walmart. But now with a buy one get one free it only encourages people to buy more leaving less for everyone else. There is a limit of four on butter so at least there is that. Maybe Safeway could just run the ad as half price on one instead of forcing me to buy two. Or do like Harris Teeter where (at least around me) if you buy a single of a BOGOF it rings up half price.

I'm not one to impose restrictions on the way businesses operate. However at this point with most of us under stay at home orders which increases the amount of food we need at home for consumption product needs to be available for us. I work in end user IT support for one of the school districts in the area. We are in the process of implementing Distance Learning to start after Spring Break. Our major task now is getting equipment to students who do not have any of their own or need additional with increases in work from home. I still have to work in contact with the public several days a week and will likely have to do so in some capacity while school is closed. Not everything can be fixed remotely like a complete hardware failure. Certainly I am no where at the risk level of retail employees right now. However between coronovirus, terrible seasonal allergies and a couple of other underlying conditions that put me at higher risk I'd like to be able to get in and out of the store quickly and know the major stuff will be there. Sorry to get up on a soapbox here but I do think that retailers play a part in this in terms of doing something to attempt to make product consistently available while protecting their own employees and supply chains from sickness. It is a balancing act no doubt. The country has to move away from this me, me, look at me attitude and realize it is us, as in the US, to get through this as best as we can.

[pseudo3d]

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

[BillyGr]

In some ways the smaller (or not really existing) ads make sense.

Shoprite here did this last week (and will again with tomorrow's sale week beginning). While their ad was small (only one side of a single page last week, both sides this week), they still had a fair number of other items not advertised but still on sale.

So, in the end there were probably fairly close to the same amount of sales (outside the couple obvious categories that stock is still hard to come by, but they did have at least a few options of each paper item), but by doing it this way people were happy to find an item they were looking for at a special price, rather than unhappy to find advertised item(s) out of stock.

[Bagels]

I stopped in Fred Meyer last night for a gallon of milk. They were completely out of milk. I decided to go to Safeway across the street. (I visit this Safeway maybe once a year) I did find milk, but a gallon of Lucerne milk was a DOLLAR more than the same variety of Fred Meyer milk. I rarely shop at Safeway as I think their prices are too high, and I don't like having to deal with price gimmicks. What surprised me though was how low the staffing level was, this store lacked self checkouts and had only one register open (with one more closed but finishing a transaction), the only clean spot on the checkstand was the new plexiglass shield (I handed my milk to the cashier instead of setting it on the belt), and they were making customers bag their own groceries. This visit to Safeway had me wondering how they can keep three locations open in an economically stagnant town. It also partly explains why other stores have been out of stock often on items...people are flocking to the stores with lower prices as the economy is uncertain.

Next time Fred Meyer is out of milk I won't be buying it at Safeway.

Not too long ago, Albertsons began selling its lowest priced milk, eggs and daily branded as "Value Corner." Does your local Safeway carry Value Corner branded milk? If so, recognize it's just a marketing game -- these are identical products to their higher priced Lucerne counterparts, but Albertsons knows many shoppers will pay a premium for Lucerne. (In Southern California, Value Corner milk is still carried, but I haven't seen the eggs and butter for awhile.) Many other chains play this game as well - I just noticed that Meijer joined the crowd as well and is branding their lowest priced milk, eggs and butter as "Penny Smart."

[arizonaguy]

I haven't noticed Value Corner milk at any of the Arizona Safeway stores but Safeway's milk prices are generally at the high end (but not ridiculously high) within the market rate. I believe the lowest priced milk is at Target / WinCo at approximately $1.80/gallon (which Fry's occasionally sells at as well although I've gotten milk around $2.10/gallon at Fry's). Walmart and Sam's Club are around $2.20/gallon, Safeway is around $2.60/gallon.

I did go to Safeway today and noticed that the perimeters / fresh departments are all fully stocked (they were not fully stocked a week or so ago). However, center store on many aisles (canned goods, pasta, cleaning supplies) was fairly barren. My store is actually staffed decently so there were several checkstands open (as well as self-checkout). My local Safeway had no plexiglass shield and there didn't appear to be many additional cleaning precautions taking place as everything seemed as it was prior to COVID-19 except for the fact that the Starbucks seating area is barricaded off by milk crates and the aforementioned out of stock items.

[Super S]

Not too long ago, Albertsons began selling its lowest priced milk, eggs and daily branded as "Value Corner." Does your local Safeway carry Value Corner branded milk? If so, recognize it's just a marketing game -- these are identical products to their higher priced Lucerne counterparts, but Albertsons knows many shoppers will pay a premium for Lucerne. (In Southern California, Value Corner milk is still carried, but I haven't seen the eggs and butter for awhile.) Many other chains play this game as well - I just noticed that Meijer joined the crowd as well and is branding their lowest priced milk, eggs and butter as "Penny Smart."

Safeway had only Lucerne milk. For what it's worth, a while back Fred Meyer eliminated the Mountain Dairy brand and carries the one Fred Meyer brand only. I am well aware of the two brands being identical, all you have to do is look at the plant code. But I do know Winco sells Andersen Dairy branded milk next to their own milk which is also bottled by Andersen.

I have had too many gallons of milk from WinCo which went bad well before the expiration date, sometimes within a couple days, like the milk was stored out of the cooler for a while or something. That's one item I will no longer buy there.

[Alpha8472]

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 in 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 for Costco were 1 and a half hours. There was also no cover.