Grocery out of stocks...

[Kestrel]

I am so tired of out of stocks. My last pick-up order was fully one-third out of stock. Some things I understand have a huge, unusual demand (clorox wipes, hand sanitizer) but some things make no sense. I've been outed Tampax for six weeks! Bullion, toilet bowl cleaner, 409/degreaser, flour, Dawn dish soap, laundry soap, Heinz ketchup, pickle relish, bbq sauce, corn dogs, sunflower seeds, and tons more... all out. My husband's addiction - diet orange crush and diet barqs root beer - both outed every week for seven weeks. Why are we still seeing these weird outs?
In addition, meat prices are through the roof! chicken up 30%, beef up 50%. We've been eating a lot more fish, because it went from being a little pricey to being the best option, price-wise.

I can't wait to see the new school supply lists (due out next week) and see how many hand sanitizer and wipes we are supposed to provide! I haven't seen wipes at all since January and no name-brand sanitizer, either. (We have some local distillery sanitizer.)

We're in Washington state. Are things different where you are?

[SnuggleBuggles]

With the exception of hand soap and disinfecting stuff, our stores are totally stocked and prices are totally normal. I do a mix of Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Target and 2 local grocery store chains.


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[jgenie]

I have a system down now and have been able to source most of what I’ve been looking for. I finally found flour on target.com and ordered multiple bags. I also received flour in my grocery order that same week so I have about 30 pounds in my freezer. I haven’t found any friends interested in taking any yet. We’re having repairs done outSide our house in the next few weeks and the workers are usually happy to take grocery bags when they come so I’ll pass them on that way. Have you tried Target Or Walmart online for cleaners and tampons? They might also have your sodas.

[georgiegirl]

Costco is well stocked. I found Clorox wipes there for the first time since this started. They didn’t have many though.

Trader Joe’s is well stocked (I even saw sanitizer once). I’ve always found flour there.

I haven’t been in to target, but I do drive up.

[carolinamama]

It isn't too bad here. Almost impossible to find Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer is starting to pop up here and there but stores have a 1/shopper limit, and toilet paper shelves are still frequently empty. As for food, I don't have trouble getting what I want although meat prices are slightly higher.

[gymnbomb]

At this point here the only things that is REALLY hard to get is disinfecting wipes and name brand hand sanitizer (though we're well stocked on whatever random kinds I've seen). Sometimes there are a few things in my grocery order that are out of stock, but usually it's like 1-3 items per week.

I bought several large pump bottles of hand sanitizer at Lowes a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of school supply lists.

[Liziz]

We are not nearly as bad off as it seems you are, but we still have lots of out of stocks too. Lysol wipes are definitely never available. Hand sanitizer is popping up, but everywhere except WalMart is charging crazy high prices -- like $3+ for travel size containers. With food, I find that there might be a single brand of something on the shelf, instead of the 3-4 brands that are usually there. It's definitely gotten a lot better over the course of the past 3 weeks, though. I can get most of what I want now.

[ett]

Disinfectant wipes/spray and brand name hand sanitizers seem to be the only items that are still difficult to find. Have you checked Target's website? There's a lot of items that you can get shipped, including non perishable foods. I've gotten grocery items like avocado oil, ketchup, canned soup, salad dressing, cereal, mustard, spices shipped from Target. If you have Amazon Prime, try Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods for delivery. I've been able to get time slots easily and while items go in and out of stock a lot on the website, once I get my order placed, I've gotten most everything I've ordered.

[trales]

I have not been able to get Amy's refried beans in weeks. Flour and hand sanitizer just showed up, but I was getting flour from a local bakery. Trader Joes has been out of Naan bread for a month. They were out of shampoo but had conditioner. Beans and rice are hard to come by. Traders Joe's was out of margarita mix (that was just plain sad). They were also out of my favorite salsa.

I would say I often cannot get 25% of what is on my list. I shop Trader Joe's every 14 days, and the regular grocery every 14.

TP has been hit or miss, more often a miss.

No gloves anywhere. We used most of ours while we are stripping and re-painting all the interior doors (18 of them). I can't find them anywhere. I can only find the big chemical rubber ones.

[WatchingThemGrow]

OP, I wonder if you've tried other stores? I did a walmart pickup order and they were "out of" 18 items. I decided to brave it and go look myself. 14 of the items were right there...on the bottom shelf, turned sideways, or whatever. A guy shopper probably did it and "couldn't see" the items. Also we discovered by talking to friends that the walmart north of us vs the one south had better shoppers who worked harder to get all the items. We had some rationing of meats for a while, and prices are slightly higher for them, but we are getting everything except clorox wipes from costco and sam's.

[TwinFoxes]

Lysol spray is the only thing I have not been able to find. So glad I grabbed two right before shutdown. Wipes are not easy to find, but it's possible, especially if I get up for Target's opening. TP is well-stocked now.

OP, if you haven't, check to see if there's a FB page in your area dedicated to finding supplies. There are a few here.

[petesgirl]

OP, I wonder if you've tried other stores? I did a walmart pickup order and they were "out of" 18 items. I decided to brave it and go look myself. 14 of the items were right there...on the bottom shelf, turned sideways, or whatever. A guy shopper probably did it and "couldn't see" the items. Also we discovered by talking to friends that the walmart north of us vs the one south had better shoppers who worked harder to get all the items. We had some rationing of meats for a while, and prices are slightly higher for them, but we are getting everything except clorox wipes from costco and sam's.

Bahaha!! Best comment ever about the shopper being a guy!

[ett]

I have not been able to get Amy's refried beans in weeks. Flour and hand sanitizer just showed up, but I was getting flour from a local bakery. Trader Joes has been out of Naan bread for a month. They were out of shampoo but had conditioner. Beans and rice are hard to come by. Traders Joe's was out of margarita mix (that was just plain sad). They were also out of my favorite salsa.

I would say I often cannot get 25% of what is on my list. I shop Trader Joe's every 14 days, and the regular grocery every 14.

TP has been hit or miss, more often a miss.

No gloves anywhere. We used most of ours while we are stripping and re-painting all the interior doors (18 of them). I can't find them anywhere. I can only find the big chemical rubber ones.

Target has disposable gloves online.
https://www.target.com/p/nitrile-gloves-30ct-smartly-8482/-/A-76150031
https://www.target.com/p/disposable-multipurpose-nitrile-gloves-80ct-8211-smartly-8482/-/A-76150030
https://www.target.com/p/disposable-multipurpose-nitrile-gloves-30ct-8211-smartly-8482/-/A-76150033

They come in and out of stock.

[AnnieW625]

Check out Lowe’s or Home Depot for cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, and hand soap. My house cleaner wanted Tilex with bleach and while I couldn’t find that I found the Lowe’s brand (Zep) with no problem. Target has had plenty of tampons, but you may have to physically go to the store to pick them up.

Honestly I brave Target and the grocery store because it is just easier than dealing with online ordering. I did do a Target pick up order once, which was nice but I hated that I couldn’t put any food except for chips in my order because they were considered it to be low stock items (and imho it is a way to get people to use Shipt because the Shipt orders can include real food; at the height of stay at home I would see at least 5 Shipt shoppers in Target at one time). I tried to do a pick up order at Walmart because they would let you buy grocery items for pickup but the wait was 4 days for a pick up spot; now it is tomorrow evening so much better.

Food has been pretty well stocked except flour, which still seems to be running low at Target and isn’t available online. I happened to buy a 5lb at Vons and it is a brand I have never heard of from Texas, but I was just happy to get some.

TP, paper towels, and Kleenex are now back in stock as well.

My favorite all purpose cleanser from Method (grapefruit) is still out of stock.


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[Melaine]

I was just thinking about this yesterday. I hadn't been to a store in over a week but yesterday DH and I hit Publix and Costco and didn't really encounter any out of stocks or any unusual pricing. Even some of the limits seem to have been lifted because we were able to buy 8 jars of peanut butter (hey, it's our favorite brand and on sale).

[hellokitty]

I have not been able to find any antibacterial wipes, and we are pretty conservative about our use of this product to begin with. I got lucky that I had a few containers in our closet when covid started, but we are on our last one, usually I only bring these with us when we travel...

If you need antibac gel I was pleasantly surprised to find some at dollar tree, they are not the pump style, but in a plastic squeeze bottle, 70% alcholol, so meet criteria. I am not a fan of the distillery type of antibacteria liquid, we have been forced to use that junk at work and patients sometimes joke at us that we smell like we've been drinking, since it is so strong.

[Kestrel]

Thanks everyone for your answers. I was wondering how much of my problems are regional, and how many are the higher-end places (Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Amazon Prime) getting stock before lower-end places. Those higher-end stores are two hours or more way for me, so not happening - and we couldn't afford them anyway. The nearest small grocery is 35 min away, major grocery (Kroger, Safeway, Walmart) are 50-60 minutes away. The idea of Home Depot or Lowes for cleaning stuff is a good one, but they're 90 minutes the other way from the grocery store - I'll have to look next time I have to go that way. Nothing delivers to my house - not even USPS.
I have, on the advice of store employees, changed the day of the week I pick up so it's picked just after the major shipment arrives, which I hope will help. I have to bring coolers and pack stuff for the trip anyway, so this time I am leaving myself time to do my pickup at Kroger and then drive the couple of miles further to Safeway to see if I can fill the gaps. There's only so much I can improvise! We'll see how it goes, I'm picking up Tuesday.

As for Costco - I don't go often, but we did go last week. They ran out of brand-name TP while I was there, and had no paper towels at all. No sanitizer or wipes, no canned tomato (a major staple in our house), no frozen hamburger logs (we don't buy fresh), looked at the "fresh" fish but it was all four or five days old. Produce was not impressive this time. A disappointing trip this time, it's the first time I've been this year, so I don't know if this is normal.

[HannaAddict]

We are in Washington and have had no issues, aside from the start of the stay home order with TP, wipes and hand sanitizer. And flour! Flour was in short supply at regular stores but bought it from Italian grocery that delivers. We do amazon fresh or Safeway online ordering, and use our local fresh seafood market (call in and they deliver it to your car). Recently bought wipes and hand sanitizer for fall too. We have a vacation place in a more rural location and hear that sometimes things are wiped out on Fridays, but that happened on weekends even pre-pandemic. Never shop at Walmart or Trader Joes. Costco online was a little hit or miss for snack stuff early on too. But overall, no issues. Meat prices are higher for “regular” cuts but not really a difference for higher end steaks, etc. or high end CSA boxes from a local fine dining restaurant, with amazing butcher cuts. They are a great value for what you get. One of the benefits of being in the city vs at our vacation place, was having multiple supply chains early on. But even our regular Safeway has held up great and we just do the drive-up and pick it up option. You must be way out there to be that far of a drive from stores. Changing the pick-up day is a good plan too! Hope it gets easier. If you have a butcher in town, we’ve found the butchers in the town where are vacation house is, are waaaaay cheaper than the grocery stores and have fantastic meat.


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[lizzywednesday]

I am so tired of out of stocks. My last pick-up order was fully one-third out of stock. Some things I understand have a huge, unusual demand (clorox wipes, hand sanitizer) but some things make no sense. I've been outed Tampax for six weeks! Bullion, toilet bowl cleaner, 409/degreaser, flour, Dawn dish soap, laundry soap, Heinz ketchup, pickle relish, bbq sauce, corn dogs, sunflower seeds, and tons more... all out. My husband's addiction - diet orange crush and diet barqs root beer - both outed every week for seven weeks. Why are we still seeing these weird outs?
...

We're in Washington state. Are things different where you are?

We can get hand sanitizer if we order from Amazon, have started going to a butcher to get meat, and we do OK with soda at pickup from places like Target.

We cannot get ... liquid hand soap refill bottles, Clorox/Lysol wipes or spray, and most cleansers.

Laundry soap is also OK, but chlorine bleach is hit-or-miss.

I'm in central NJ.

[DualvansMommy]

I shop between Wegmans, TJ and Costco so between 3 places I’m able to get everything I need. The only items that are still hard to find is the 409 cleaner, Clorox wipes and Lysol spray.

However, from the top of several moms in my town FB group I was told you can get the Clorox wipes and Lysol spray at our nearby discount store. It’s a limit of 1 or two per customer. I got other more at Home Depot.

I’m wondering if it may be location specific to you? Since you mentioned all the regular stores is bit of drive away, sound like you’re in a rural area. Supply affected more in rural or farming communities?


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[niccig]

We can get hand sanitizer if we order from Amazon, have started going to a butcher to get meat, and we do OK with soda at pickup from places like Target.

We cannot get ... liquid hand soap refill bottles, Clorox/Lysol wipes or spray, and most cleansers.

Laundry soap is also OK, but chlorine bleach is hit-or-miss.

I'm in central NJ.

I couldn’t find hand soap. I bought body wash instead and put it in the dispenser. Figured soap is soap. No chlorox or wipes to be found. I had bought a stash when this all started back in February to take to work as my school room doesn’t get cleaned, and I bought it all home in March. I’ll have to make my own cleaner or use something else.


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[carolinacool]

I do all of my shopping in-store.

I HEAR you on the meat. The ground chuck used to be $3.99 a pound and it was in the butcher's window, so I could buy the exact amount I needed. Now, it's been replaced by some ground beef that's $5.99 a pound. And there are very few sales on any kind of meat now -- pork, chicken, steaks. And I've noticed that's now extended over to the breakfast meats, deli meats and hot dogs. Usually my store will rotate the weekly sale among the variety of meats (Ball Park hot dogs, Smithfield bacon on sale this week, Oscar Meyer hot dogs, Hormel bacon on sale the next week, etc.). None of it's been on sale for at least three weeks.

Items like rice, beans and mac and cheese are still looking skimpy. Toilet paper is improving. I was in Target on Saturday around 3 p.m. While the shelves weren't completely full, there was plenty to go around. I still haven't seen Clorox wipes. As for hand sanitizer, I haven't seen Purell, but both my grocery store and Target seem to now have "boutique" brands with a boutique price.

ETA: I hadn't even thought about the stuff for back to school. That will be a tall order.

[bisous]

I found one small package of Clorox wipes. That’s all I’ve been able to find but I’m not out much or making special trips.

I feel like I’ll always have a slightly different mindset while shopping these days!!

[o_mom]

It sucks that they can't figure out how to fulfill online orders adequately. We have not done grocery pickup, but from the posts on NextDoor, it seems common to pick up and order with multiple items missing, but if you walk inside, they have them on the shelves. Some of it is the stock at the time they pull the order. I know our grocery stores are all stocking all day long (which is really, really, annoying when you are trying to stay 6 ft away and they have a giant pallet blocking the whole section), so an order pulled at 9 am for a noon pickup will be missing anything stocked from 9-12.

Costco has been fairly well stocked here. They have reduced selection of frozen hamburger, but I was able to get the 6 lb package of fresh, so I just froze it in smaller chunks. I didn't notice the TP since we never buy name-brand.

One other note - the two sodas you mentioned are not super common. I know many food manufacturers are cutting back the number of products so that they can increase production, so all the fancy Coke flavors and 17 varieties of Chex mix are no longer available. That could be the issue with the soda, not that it helps.

[PZMommy]

I couldn’t find hand soap. I bought body wash instead and put it in the dispenser. Figured soap is soap. No chlorox or wipes to be found. I had bought a stash when this all started back in February to take to work as my school room doesn’t get cleaned, and I bought it all home in March. I’ll have to make my own cleaner or use something else.


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I’ve had good luck at finding hand soap refills at Costco.

Can’t find wipes anywhere. Otherwise, my Ralphs seems to be pretty well stocked. I’ve been able to find what I have needed. I gave up on Instacart. It was so hit and miss with what they got. Some shoppers were great, and others were not so good. I go once every two weeks. I may go this week and try to stock up as I fear another shut down is in our future here in LA.

[lizzywednesday]

... I bought body wash instead and put it in the dispenser. Figured soap is soap. ...

I did that for one of my bathrooms because DD keeps gouging bits out of the bar soap and leaving them everywhere. EVERY. WHERE.

[Kestrel]

Update from OP:
We're poor right now, buying higher end cuts is not happening, nor is CSA which at least here requires a fairly large initial payment. We depend on the bargain cuts that I know how to use better than most. (pork shoulder, turkey thighs, chicken thighs and whole birds, markdown meats) I did score a great deal on some frozen pollock at $2.69/lb. Meat counter staff said with the current state of the world, the demand for these cheaper cuts has gone up dramatically, though this is our normal. (I even jotted down a couple of recipes for a mom in the store, that was cool - she didn't know what to do with the pork shoulder that was on sale $1.29/lb. The two somewhat local butchers are much too expensive for us as well.
Tuesday's pick up order was much better - ten out of stocks instead of the twenty-seven on the previous order. I got flour! No yeast though, but I did barter some starter from a neighbor in exchange for flour. Canned tomato continues to be a problem, outed again. Also none of DH's diet sodas still, but they have shelf tags still at all three stores, and of course since they are vendor filled store staff doesn't know anything.
But in all, more successful, even if I had to go to three stores to do it.

[jgenie]

Update from OP:
We're poor right now, buying higher end cuts is not happening, nor is CSA which at least here requires a fairly large initial payment. We depend on the bargain cuts that I know how to use better than most. (pork shoulder, turkey thighs, chicken thighs and whole birds, markdown meats) I did score a great deal on some frozen pollock at $2.69/lb. Meat counter staff said with the current state of the world, the demand for these cheaper cuts has gone up dramatically, though this is our normal. (I even jotted down a couple of recipes for a mom in the store, that was cool - she didn't know what to do with the pork shoulder that was on sale $1.29/lb. The two somewhat local butchers are much too expensive for us as well.
Tuesday's pick up order was much better - ten out of stocks instead of the twenty-seven on the previous order. I got flour! No yeast though, but I did barter some starter from a neighbor in exchange for flour. Canned tomato continues to be a problem, outed again. Also none of DH's diet sodas still, but they have shelf tags still at all three stores, and of course since they are vendor filled store staff doesn't know anything.
But in all, more successful, even if I had to go to three stores to do it.

I’m glad more of the items you were looking for were in stock. Hopefully the shortages will be fewer and fewer. I would love recipes if you’re up for sharing. I’m new to cooking and always happy to have something new to try!

[Kestrel]

Thanks for the interest, I feel so loved! :)

I will start a thread in the lounge in the next day or two.