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Confused citizens have taken to their social media accounts in the past few days after seeing their local grocery store shelves wiped clean. Americans have had a hard time getting ahold of their daily essentials, which are yet to be restocked. Necessities, including milk, bread, canned soup, cleaning products, etc., are unavailable in many territories.
Twitter is being flooded with pictures of bare shelves in Trader Joes, Giant Foods, Publix stores, and more. This is not the first time store shelves have been emptying in recent years. When the covid lockdowns first came into being, citizens had rushed to stores hoarding daily goods, after which toilet paper was infamously unavailable in several shops for a long time.
Albertsons responds to grocery store shelves mystery
The CEO of Albertsons, Vivek Sankaran, told reporters that they were expecting better supply following the decrease in covid cases, however “omicron has put a bit of a dent” in their plans. Several stores are now forced to deal with products being out of stock for months. He added:
“We would expect more supply challenges over the next four to six weeks. As a business we’ve all learned to manage it, we’ve all learned to make sure that the stores are still very presentable -- give the consumers as much choice as we can get.”
A shortage of truckers during covid has also led to a decrease of products on store shelves. An industry analyst from SuperMarketGuru said:
"The trucking industry has an aging workforce on top of a shortage.”
Adding to the issues with the supply chain, Geoff Freeman, the CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said:
“The supply chain is fragile and unable to absorb further shocks -- whether its winter storms or, far more impactfully, omicron -- and that’s showing up as empty shelves. In the near term, that means supporting workers who are essential to supply-chain continuity. Testing is the most critical need.”
As the number of empty shelves continues to soar, Bloomberg has reported that online searches for necessities have skyrocketed due to consumer anxiety. Groceries, including cream cheese, pasta, chicken, potatoes, meat and cat food, amongst others, are being searched for by online shoppers.
