Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

[Bagels]

We stopped by the Woodward Corner Market again last night. It's Meijer's second "artisan" (high end) small format store (first in SE Mich). It opened earlier this year as part of a development that replaced an aging strip mall that was anchored by one of Kroger's top performing stores. It's sad -- it's a beautiful store, but it has no business. Whereas the standard Meijers are largely cleaned out, this place is beyond well stocked. It's so well stocked, that they're marking down perishables that have a "sell by" date several days out. Huge, premium fruit trays marked around $25 are being sold for $3. Prime Fillets marked at $20/lb. being sold for $5. Bacon wrapped pineapple and chicken breast kabobs marked down to $1. Also, the "Meijer" branding was originally discreet but is now prominent, including the acceptance of mPerks. My best guess is that its proximity to the nearby hospital (which owns the shopping plaza) is chasing people away.

[storewanderer]

It seems a little excessive right now to be pushing high cost fruit trays (aren't those for large gatherings, which I would assume have been banned by the Governor of MI), bacon wrapped filets, etc. at a time when people are focusing so hard on the basics.

I suppose if the store is well stocked otherwise, and you have the labor to prep all this stuff, why not I guess... still seems a little excessive.

At least the store is a well stocked treasure in a sea of otherwise out of stock filled stores. I've found a couple places like that in my area, and it is sure nice to shop them right now.

[SamSpade]

Here in Texas, H-E-B has solved the toilet paper problem by trucking in supplies from Mexico. The store I was at today in Austin had an entire aisle (!!!) and an endcap filled with 4-packs of chamomile-scented Vogue toilet paper, a brand sold by Kimberly-Clark’s Mexico division.

A friend tweeted a similar picture at one of the Mexican supermarkets in southeast Portland, Ore.

[SamSpade]

I have been trying my best to follow the governmental requests to have only one member of your household out and my partner works in healthcare (clinic setting) so is already out... I did do some grocery shopping on Saturday morning, hoping to get into Trader Joe's again as it's been before the mid-March crush for me. Unfortunately, the line at the local store wrapped around the center and I really didn't want to wait in that kind of setting. The adjacent Safeway seemed busy but with no clear restrictions.

I ended up driving up the road to an Albertsons as I know their layout and prefer the deeper selection some have noted here compared to Safeway. Store was not particularly busy at all. They had every other self checkout open (this store has 4 total so it was 2, kitty corner), one cashier, Starbucks, customer service staffed. No one was sanitizing carts for customers or directing you but their wipes station was stocked. This store also has a restroom in the front of the store, but I chose to not wash my hands beyond wiping with the cart wipe.

► Show Spoiler

Deli was staffed as normal, fully stocked case of cold salads and meat/cheese available for slicing alongside the usual hot fried items Albertsons carries. I decided to grab some sliced Primo Taglio pre-pack from a nearby refrigerator. Produce was well stocked. Doughnuts pre-packaged as noted elsewhere. I forgot to check if bakery breads were double paper bagged or plastic wrapped. Premade pan breads were not fully stocked but not over-shopped either. The only aisle I saw a shortage of product in was hand sanitizers (I did not walk down paper products). This store did have the "one way aisle" markers and I was backwards shopping a majority of the time. The only time I was near any shoppers or employees though was by the service meat counter. Otherwise the 'physical distance' worked out okay. Cashier did have a sneeze guard, asked if I wanted to bag my own groceries. She asked if I had bags (I saw a sign saying reusables are a 'no no' right now so that was confusing) and I bagged in traditional paper bags. Albertsons does not seem to be stocking handled paper bags. The cashier prompted if I wanted my receipt or was playing Monopoly. I went ahead and said yes to both. After our transaction, she wiped her hands with hand sanitizer before continuing with the next customer.

Note, content is in no way a spoiler, I just felt it got a little long and might not be interesting to all to read.

[Bagels]

Jeeze, that's kinda pricey for a four pack of Regio TP. Pre-Wuhan Flu, it was sold for 50c to a buck at various Mexican "bargain" stores in Santa Ana.

It seems a little excessive right now to be pushing high cost fruit trays (aren't those for large gatherings, which I would assume have been banned by the Governor of MI), bacon wrapped filets, etc. at a time when people are focusing so hard on the basics.

I suppose if the store is well stocked otherwise, and you have the labor to prep all this stuff, why not I guess... still seems a little excessive.

At least the store is a well stocked treasure in a sea of otherwise out of stock filled stores. I've found a couple places like that in my area, and it is sure nice to shop them right now.

Ah, I didn't think about that ... the stuff was probably carried in preparation for Easter, but the "stay at home" order caused them to dump it at cheap pricing, knowing that the store has little foot traffic. Still, I can't resist a bargain so I'm sure I'll keep going back until I go home.

[storewanderer]

Went to Smiths tonight. This particular location seems to do a really good job getting restocked. They restocked paper towels, napkins, and kleenex in limited brands. Still no toilet paper. The cleaning aisle is also much improved but still has its share of outs. The rest of the store, it was basically like nothing was going on. Everything else was stocked; frozen foods all stocked, flour, soup, rice, dry beans, etc.

Meat department was full of deals, short dated stuff that goes in 1-3 days. Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast .99/lb expiring in 4 days, 80/20 Grind in big vac packs at 1.99/lb expiring in 3 days, Whole Chicken .49/lb expiring tomorrow (may have been even less), and some other stuff that escapes me.

Service deli was pushing 8 piece chicken at 3.99 (regular 8.99).

Looks like a glut of chicken.

[BillyGr]

It seems a little excessive right now to be pushing high cost fruit trays (aren't those for large gatherings, which I would assume have been banned by the Governor of MI), bacon wrapped filets, etc. at a time when people are focusing so hard on the basics.

I suppose if the store is well stocked otherwise, and you have the labor to prep all this stuff, why not I guess... still seems a little excessive.

At least the store is a well stocked treasure in a sea of otherwise out of stock filled stores. I've found a couple places like that in my area, and it is sure nice to shop them right now.

Ah, I didn't think about that ... the stuff was probably carried in preparation for Easter, but the "stay at home" order caused them to dump it at cheap pricing, knowing that the store has little foot traffic. Still, I can't resist a bargain so I'm sure I'll keep going back until I go home.

Makes perfect sense - they would probably normally order items like that a fair time ahead to be delivered for a holiday week, so they may not have been able to stop those deliveries. Thus, they had the items and it was either offer it cheap or get nothing for it at all when it sat there and went bad (though something like the fruit or other ready to eat stuff might have been a nice item to donate to a local medical facility for the staff or even to give to their own employees as a thank you for working during this time and save yourself some work when you get home).

[Brian Lutz]

In another interesting development, I saw a story yesterday about Restaurant Depot (a B to B foodservice wholesaler) temporarily opening their stores to the general public:

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/13/whole ... ly-ch.html

Granted, this isn't going to be practical for most people, but does offer them an option to sell perishable goods that might otherwise go to waste in the face of reduced commercial demand.

[storewanderer]

In another interesting development, I saw a story yesterday about Restaurant Depot (a B to B foodservice wholesaler) temporarily opening their stores to the general public:

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/13/whole ... ly-ch.html

Granted, this isn't going to be practical for most people, but does offer them an option to sell perishable goods that might otherwise go to waste in the face of reduced commercial demand.

I may have posted it already but Raleys has been ordering stuff from US Foods and others in recent weeks. It may have stopped, but they still have some of the products left in their stores.

It only makes sense to do this. While many of these items are different shapes and sizes than the usual consumer items, and less appealing looking packaging, if people are "stocking up" these large packages are a perfect fit.

It is too bad these stores did not make the decision to open to the public a few weeks ago. They could have moved a lot of perishables out that probably spoiled. Is there something in their vendor contracts that prevents them from being open to the public I wonder, and it took these weeks to resolve that?

I know the Cash & Carry used to deem itself "wholesale only" and used to have a sticker on the door that said it, but from the time it opened about 8 years ago, I was always able to shop there with no questions asked by the employees. More recently, Smart & Final in its efforts to grab whatever business it could, started to advertise the stores as "open to the public."

[storewanderer]

Went into a CA Safeway today. The store was very well stocked. Produce and dairy were very full and well stocked. The paper products aisle was also about 67% full though only with Northern and store brand products present. They also had quite a bit of hand sanitizer.

Thinking they got things fixed on the way back over into NV, stopped at one of the NV Stores. This is not a real busy store. Same old as a few days ago. The store looks absolutely terrible. Produce refrigeration is nearly empty (salad case was 100% empty, the rest was scattered outs), though the tables with apples, cirtus, etc. look pretty good. Dairy still had some outs but not as many as before. Meat seemed overstocked though. Center store still has a ton of outs like rice, dry beans, vinegar, and numerous other items.

I guess they are restocking stores that they want to restock first and prioritizing the deliveries accordingly.