Store reports: 1st week of April

[prairiewindmomma]

If a household member has gone shopping recently, can you share your experience and general region?

———-

We live on the west coast. Stores have been disrupted for about a month.

Dh went grocery shopping this morning at a large grocery store. They limit admittance based on the square footage of the store, as do all of the stores. It only took 30 min to get in today. Shelves were about half full (which is an improvement). Produce is still really low. Items in high demand like eggs and milk are still limited in quantity but they were available for purchase 60 min after store opening. (This is an improvement.) Prices are still up 15-30% from a month ago. The line to check out wrapped entirely around the interior of the store, twice. It took 90 min for Dh to check out.

Dh began wearing a mask several weeks ago. For a long time, he was the only masked and gloved person. About 3 weeks ago, he began to see others masked or gloved. Last week about 1/3 of people were masked. This morning about 3/4 of people were and most of the people who didn’t have a mask were still gloved. This is a huge shift.

[Liz CA]

West Coast - more rural area where we live - no lines, only Walmart has evidently implemented restrictions on how many can be in the store at once. We don't shop there but heard about it. Nothing rationed but shortages for flour, sugar and TP. Meat still available - especially at our little, local butcher shop. Everyone keeping distance but few are masked.

In the metro area where we work - lines outside grocery stores, special hours for seniors / immunocompromised people, rationed water and TP several weeks ago. More people with masks - haven't noticed gloves on people walking in the streets.

[Amira]

I live in Egypt.  So far, everything is normal here in the grocery stores I have been to. I don’t go to the hypermarkets, but I heard there was some stocking up going on in them a couple of weeks ago. Prices were higher for a bit but seem to have settled down.

Most people here don’t have the resources to stock up, and buying all the lentils from your corner grocery when you know your neighbors will need some isn’t done here.

It was hard to find alcohol-based sanitizers two weeks ago, but the government stepped up production and distribution quite quickly. I see more people wearing masks every day, but it’s still a clear minority who do. More people wear gloves.  

[G5052]

Outskirts of a major metropolitan area. I do Wal-Mart ordering because I feel better about that versus going in. It's a bit of game to get a slot, but I know what to do. 

Other than T.P., everything I ordered from Wal-Mart was in or reasonably substituted. I tried to order pasta sauce and couldn't, but I was fine getting ingredients to make pasta sauce. That sort of thing continues. 

Ordering or shopping inside is too hit-or-miss for me. I really don't want to have to go into 3-4 stores to get what I need.

I was at Wal-Mart relatively early (9am) and about 1/2 the people coming out had masks on. I drove down the main street area, and that ratio was about the same for people walking down the street.

Edited April 4, 2020 by G5052

[hjffkj]

I do my shopping in a college town in northern DE. I have avoided going into huge stores like Walmart. Mostly, I've relied on food lion and the restaurant depot(which you need a membership to and can only get with a food related business license.) 

Food lion is mostly stocked with everything but tp and paper towels. Yogurt is consistently slim pickings but everything else seems pretty stocked. Meat varies by what is available but there is always something to get.

Restaurant depot was fully stocked when my dad went aside from chicken

[MrsMommy]

St. Louis area. I went grocery shopping yesterday, for the first time in almost two weeks. There was a line outside the store when I got there, but I arrived just as they were opening, and no one was denied admittance, they were just ushering people in slowly at safe distances. There was plenty of produce and daily, but the meat department was a little more picked over...for example, they only had the two pound packages of various types of ground beef, no one pound and also no big bulk packages. I did have to wait in line for about 10 minutes to access the paper products aisle...they did have both toilet paper and paper towels, but only one name brand of each, and only small packages of toilet paper, and only big packages of paper towels, limit one of each per customers. Those and bleach/hand soap/hand sanitizer/bottled water were the only things being limited (I think) which I was was grateful for, because I'm hoping not to go back to the store for another almost two weeks, and I needed five gallons of milk to get our family of seven through that long. Most everything else was stocked pretty well, or had reasonable substitutes I could go with...not always the brand or size I wanted, but at least there was stuff I could work with. I ended up with almost everything on my list in my cart, so I consider it a victory!

[Kassia]

NE Ohio, semi-rural area.  Toilet paper is out everywhere even with a limit of one.  Those Pillsbury tubes are out everywhere and have been for a month.  I use the French Bread dough for calzones, but would substitute pizza dough if I could find it.  Bread is hit or miss, and has a limit of one.  Eggs have been stocked, but limit of one (same with milk).  I eat a lot of eggs so have to make multiple trips to the store.  My daughter's Greek yogurt comes and goes and so do the cheese sticks we eat.  I can't find my favorite pretzels either.  Rice and pasta are hard to find.  Ice cream is pretty wiped out.

Meats were gone at first, but seem ok now.  Produce is well-stocked.  Frozen foods like pizza and breaded chicken have been fine.

 

ETA - no curbside delivery available.  My son lives in central Ohio in a highly populated area.  He said the store was empty and well stocked with limits only on TP, paper towels, and tissues.  

Edited April 4, 2020 by Kassia

[Selkie]

I went grocery shopping at our midwest, small town Walmart this morning. They just started limiting the number of people who can be in the store, but I got there when they opened and was able to walk right in.

About 20% of the people I saw were wearing masks and gloves. This is a big increase from when I was last there two weeks ago. 

I don't buy meat, eggs, or dairy, so I don't know about the availability of those items, or if there are limits.

Produce was fully stocked. Carrots and potatoes were back in stock after being sold out. Still no tofu, though - that's been sold out for weeks.

The ice cream section looked pretty bare, including the non-dairy ice cream. Frozen pizzas were back in stock. Still hardly any frozen fruit, but plenty of frozen veggies this time.

The rice/grain shelves were still pretty empty, but canned beans were plentiful again.

There was plenty of orange juice and other refrigerated juices this time, as well as almond milk. The butter case was almost empty.

There was a small quantity of paper towels and toilet paper. No name-brand tp - just some that was store brand or maybe generic and looked pretty low quality.

I did self-checkout and there was no line.

 

[gardenmom5]

seattle area.  I popped into a store because I was driving right past it.  dh had gone to three and not been able to find lentils.  the one I went into (slightly different area), had exactly one.  most of the empty nearby shelves had labels for beans. (there were other brands in stock of similar types of beans.)   most of their stock seemed fine.  I went in the afternoon.

[athena1277]

I’m in N AL.  I went to Kroger yesterday about 9am.  It was packed.  It reminded me of Thanksgiving food shopping without the turkey.  No social distancing.  They’ve been doing a reasonable job staying stocked considering the circumstances.  There are always empty shelves, but I’m usually able to get what I need.  Yesterday, however, was extra crazy (and I didn’t know when I was there), because the governor announced a stay at home order that goes into effect this evening.  Apparently a lot of people don’t understand that you can still go out to buy groceries, so they are trying to stock up on everything.  It’s only been 3 weeks since things started closing here.  I keep hoping things will start to level out in the supply/demand in grocery stores, but no.

[regentrude]

Midwest, small town.
Kroger 7:30am: Well stocked. Flour very limited (1 per person, and they had only a few bags of white flour). No yeast. Lots of produce. I saw customers with toilet paper.
Aldi 15 minutes before closing time, 2 hours after our governor announced stay-home order for the state.: No flour, no paper products; produce very low (to be expected that late in the day), canned goods low but still available. Everything else was there. Abundance of cheese and meat.

Edited April 4, 2020 by regentrude

[klmama]

Midwest.  I went to Costco yesterday.  They were disinfecting carts before customers took them.  Customers got a cart and stood in line to enter the store.  They only let in a certain number at a time.  In the store, most things appeared to be in stock, including TP, water, milk, eggs, meat, produce, etc.  I don't know if there were disinfectants available or not.  The only items I noticed having quantity limitations were egg whites (1) and cases of bottled water (1).  There were tables set up around the customer service area to maintain distance, and there were plexiglass walls between customers and employees there and at the checkout.  There were taped lines on the floor to mark 6' distance.  It was a very smooth process.  

[historically accurate]

DH picked up an order on Wed. We chose a grocery pickup order, and that Wed was the first day for pickup. Preordered about 7-8 days before pickup.

Out of stock: hand sanitizer, shout laundry spray, toilet paper, blueberries, large (yard sized) garbage bags, flour, eggs, apples, spaghetti, dial body soap.  

The grocery pickup was 5 hours late as well (supposed to pick up between 4-6 pm; they contacted DH at 9:15 that the order was ready). Nothing had been out of stock other than the sanitizer and toilet paper the day before. Note this city had its first death the day before, so I think there was another smaller panic buying round that particular day. I ran into the small grocery store close to our house the next morning to see if I could get brother his apples. They were not busy, and the produce was well stocked. I didn't look at the other portions of the store. 

We are in the Midwest.

I will begin to gather my list for Wamart grocery pickup for Wednesday starting tomorrow.

[slackermom]

Boston metro area. I haven't been out in the last 2 weeks, but my ex has been doing occasional errands for me. My child and I have asthma, and other medical issues, so he has agreed to help us strictly shelter in place.

From yesterday: He said other than limiting the number of people in the store,  he saw no changes at Whole Foods and it made him uncomfortable to be in there. He went in to get an Amazon locker pickup but did not grocery shop there due to lack of social distancing etc.  He went to Wegmans instead. They are letting staff wear masks and gloves and seem more focused on safe shopping and have 1-per shopper limits on the popular items. He did not share details of the trip, but got 90% of the items I requested, including TP, eggs, butter, sandwich bread, a bag of apples, some very green bananas, milk, yogurt, and OJ. Plus a 6 lb pack of ground beef, oh my.  No flour or goldfish crackers though. I had been trying to get a grocery pick up slot at Wegmans for more than a week without success, so I am lucky I have a shopper I could send!

[Farrar]

I'm in DC. I went to Giant (large, regional grocery chain) on Monday late at night. New plastic guards up between customers and cashiers. No visible efforts to limit shoppers in the store or sanitize carts or anything but it was pretty empty at the time of day I went. Tons of produce, but it seemed sort of off. Like, the greenest bananas I've ever seen for sale in the US. Insane amounts of onions all about to go off (onions!). That sort of thing. Rice and beans in stock, if picked over. The things that were totally or nearly totally out were flour, regular sugar, regular pasta (they did have gf), frozen french fries, and eggs. A few brands of tp in stock, but just a few. There were almost no frozen pizzas. I wanted fries so I ended up with one of the last three bags. There was one thing of sweet potato fries but I went for one of the two bags of gourmet brand rosemary infused fries. They turned out to be pretty good. I might buy them where there are actual options at some point.

On Tuesday, a worker at that store was diagnosed with CV19. Sigh.

On Friday, I did a very quick run to Home Depot. They were limiting shoppers, though it was empty enough that I didn't have to wait. Everything in stock as far as I could see but I didn't go to the cleaners or paper products so no clue about that. Not too crowded. The garden area was very full though. Day laborers were still hanging out in the parking lot too, which I thought was a little concerning. There were marks on the floor to indicate where to stand in line, but it was confusing. Not a problem since it  was pretty empty though. No efforts to distance the customer and the cashier, which was mildly annoying. But I was in and out in like ten minutes. I looked up exactly what I wanted and wrote down the aisle and bay for it. It was like Ikea shopping where you've got your little list.

I also went past the farmer's market today. The compost dropoff is there. That was moving, but not like it usually is. They spaced the whole thing out and there are fewer sellers. It's a bit wild looking really. They moved the compost droppoff across the street and the bins were all spaced out six feet apart. So... good job, city, I guess. We also picked up takeout. Bbq place and it was hopping. Online orders and you couldn't go inside the place at all. They bring it to you on their little patio from the back and set it down so it's no contact to get it. Lots of places have turned their patios into walk up counters now. Two of the places on our street have done that - the Mexican place reconfigured so that it's like a little bar facing their patio and the pizza place put up an awning so you can order and pay right there outside on their little deck thingy.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Farrar

[PrincessMommy]

I went last Thurs (3/30).  The shelves were fairly well stocked.  Eggs, meat, milk, fruit/veggies.  Actually the only noticeable absence was pasta/spaghetti aisle and the paper-goods aisle.  I've heard that if you ask at the front desk they do have TP, but I didn't try to see if it was true because we're still okay.    Frozen veggies was slim pickings but not awful.   Everything else was pretty well stocked.

 

[KidsHappen]

Middle TN. We went to Target one week ago and except for social distancing and lack of sanitizing and paper products everything else was as normal. We had our best luck there and got pretty much everything on our list. 

There was a midweek trip to Kroger for produce, bread and lunch meat and they were practicing social distancing but everything was pretty picked over or totally gone.

My hubby went to Walmart yesterday and they were limiting people in the building, practicing social distancing and he said people seemed a little more tense than they had previously been. They were out of a lot of things.

In general we have been having a hard time finding cleaning, sanitizing, and paper products. As time as went on staples are getting harder to come buy and for at least the last week frozen vegetables as well. 

We are pretty well stocked but having a hard time keeping up with things like bread, eggs, butter and other staples that you would use on a daily basis. 

[Arcadia]

Just left Trader Joe’s (Palo Alto, California). No yeast, no toilet paper. Otherwise shelves are stocked and restriction of two per item is lifted 🙂

I grab my kid’s favorites of shrimp gyoza, pork gyoza, party meatballs, masala chai in a can, mints then grab vegetables that I don’t need big quantities of.

Now to Costco for those bulk quantity items. 

[Kassia]

My son lives in northern Indiana and said his store had everything - even displays of TP!  He did say there were restrictions on certain items, though.  

 

ETA - another son lives south of Boston and said no eggs, no frozen fruit, no ground turkey, no brown rice at his Costco.  Those were the things he wanted so I don't know about other items that are in demand.  

Edited April 5, 2020 by Kassia

[GoodGrief]

Flour and disinfecting wipes are close to impossible in Alaska. I finally found some flour in the commissary on base, limit 1.  Most of the choices were bread flour and self-rising, but there were two remaining 10 lb bags of all purpose. Would not normally buy that size, but did under the circumstances.

[Zebra]

Things were really well organized at my store, and fairly well stocked.   Only letting so many people in, stand here, do this.   It was really nice.

Things like flour and hand sanitizer were out, but just about everything else was reasonably in stock.    It was such a relief after the last 3 weeks.

 

[ThisIsTheDay]

Virginia, metro area of 200,000. I went to WalMart today at noon. While the door was cordoned off and shoppers were counted, there was no line. I was handed an already cleaned cart (I'd much prefer to do my own). Noticeably fewer children than last weekend. Store was decently stocked, finally there was a lot of pasta, and there was even (only) generic toilet paper. No spray cleaners though. No lines at self check. Less than 10% of shoppers wore masks.

I then went to Kroger. It was much the same, handed a cleaned cart, seemed fully stocked except toilet paper, spray cleaners, and one of the fresh meat cases was closed, but the other was fully stocked. The prepacked meat area was full. Very few children, less than 10% of people masked. Again, no waiting at self check.

My dad is in the outskirts of Phoenix. He reported today that they went early to Fry's, 7 am, and there was a line to get in. They went to another more local chain, no waiting, but the store was out of yeast. That's the only thing I remember about availability.

[GoodGrief]

I actually found a 5 pack of Clorox wipes in Costco this morning (went right at opening)

[Terabith]

Roanoke, Virginia.  I went around 2 pm because I wanted a rotisserie chicken.  Meat was well stocked.  Lots of produce.  There were plenty of eggs, although only the dozen, not the 18 sets.  Plenty of milk.  There was even a bit of rice, which has been really out.  

No toilet paper, but I didn't expect to find that.  However, they didn't have the tea my oldest drinks nor La Croix or vanilla extract or brown sugar.  I know those are major first world problems, but I was disappointed.  I might go into a smaller grocery store in the morning later this week and look for the tea, at least.  

ETA:  I panicked when I heard about the recommendation for up and coming hot spots to not shop for two weeks before I heard that we are not one of those hot spots, so I went to Food Lion tonight.  I was literally the only customer in the store.  It was so clean, everything shown.  I didn't check toilet paper, and they never really have produce, but everything I did see was totally stocked.  In front of the cashier lines, there are spots telling people where to stand for social distancing.  I think I may be doing Food Lion shopping for the next couple weeks other than a bit of produce at Kroger.  

Edited April 7, 2020 by Terabith

[pitterpatter]

Mid-Missouri.

The Walmart I went to Saturday was selling hand sanitizer from behind the customer service desk. They had small bottles and larger pump bottles. One per customer. I've never been so ecstatic to buy hand sanitizer. DH needs it for work. I clicked my heels all the way to the car.

Aldi was well stocked for the most part. No TP and some other paper goods where missing when I went, but that was to be expected. Tub butter was also scarce. They had eggs, which have been hard to come by around here. I was so happy Aldi was stocked. (There were days a couple of weeks ago that they were completely sold out.) They only sell fruit buy the bag. That's the only way I'm buying fruit right now. My local store doesn't sell fruit by the bag. Not beyond apples, anyway.

Walmart had holes, but there was plenty of food. Cereal was way down. Tortilla chips too this time. (Last time I went, no stores had tortillas...this time is was the chips.) Tub butter has been scarce everywhere for weeks. No hot dog buns at the three grocery-type stores that I went to.

Edited April 6, 2020 by pitterpatter

[MEmama]

Coastal Maine. I went to our local grocery this morning around 9. An employee directed me into line outside  (only 1 person ahead of me) and gave me a sanitized cart. We stood on marked lines 6 feet apart. Once in, the store was almost fully stocked. I found every single item on my lengthy list, plus picked up a bottle of shower gel (getting low on the bar soap we usually use) and a couple other items.

There were signs everywhere asking customers to mind what they touch. No limits were posted on milk,eggs or anything that I saw, although there was a sign at the checkout stating two item limits on those things. My sense is that the policy gives the cashiers some flexibility in case someone is hoarding but doesn’t inhibit everyone. I was able to buy 2 almond milks (the big ones!), one milk and one chocolate milk. There were plenty of eggs so I bought two. I did notice there still isn’t any flour, but they did have the almond flour I needed.

I didn’t check the paper aisle but I did see dish soap and so on. There wasn’t a lot of hand soap, but there was some. The canned aisles were well stocked again. There was, as always, plenty of fresh produce (low on frozen, but more than there has been). I bought myself some tulips for a touch of springtime happiness. 🙂 

Some 75-80% of shoppers were wearing masks and trying to keep distance. The few people were obviously weren’t trying also weren’t wearing protection. 🤷‍♀️. It was all really organised and clean.

Eta a friend reported this afternoon that there is lots of TP available at Sams club in south Portland. They had 2 security guards to enforce the one per customer limit.

Edited April 6, 2020 by MEmama

[vonfirmath]

Where is all the yeast?

I was unable to find either yeast or flour this weekend :(

 

[Arcadia]

6 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

Where is all the yeast?

I was unable to find either yeast or flour this weekend 😞

https://calgaryherald.com/news/covid-19-yeast-production-facility-in-calgary-rising-to-the-challenge/
“Plant manager Gerald Ripley said the initial spike in demand took place mid-March and is only now starting to return to normal.

“When things (non-essential businesses) started shutting down, it was an initial panic buy,” Ripley says of the yeast shortage. “People went to the grocery store and saw empty shelves so they started buying a bit extra, like fresh bread.”

With people doing more cooking and eating at home, the demand for products such as bread has increased. Additionally, with a growing number of people isolated at home and finding they have time on their hands, baking bread has become a popular pursuit.

Yeast is one of the key ingredients needed to bake bread, but most people aren’t aware how crucial the Calgary facility is in ensuring shelves are stocked with the product.

“For our plant here in Calgary, we cover all of western Canada from Manitoba to Vancouver and the Pacific northwest U.S. down to northern California.”

The facility produces the well-known AB Mauri brand, Fleischmann’s Yeast, which is supplied to large industrial bakeries, medium-sized businesses and smaller artisan or mom and pop shops. It supplies over 90 per cent of yeast, creamed or packaged, for the Alberta and B.C. market.

On a weekly basis, the facility’s yeast supports the making of roughly two million loaves of bread or rolls in Alberta.

“If you take that on an annual scale, it scales up to 928 million loaves of bread per year and if you put each loaf of bread end-to-end it would be enough to go around the Earth seven times,” said Ripley.

He said running a yeast manufacturing plant at 25 per cent over capacity is not something they could sustain. Fortunately the plant was able to meet the initial demand and has since seen it average out with consumers returning to more normal buying patterns.

“Our plant has always run at close to 100 per cent capacity,” said Ripley. “What’s important here, for our Calgary operation, is being a key, essential business that supports the food chain within the country … Our plant runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.””

 

[BarbecueMom]

St. Louis, about 1:00pm today:

Costco - Could not find any cleaning wipes or raw chicken (they had rotisserie chickens and frozen chicken breasts though).  They did have pallets of toilet paper and paper towels (Limit 1), and a few types of rice, plenty of eggs and milk and bread and flour/sugar.  I didn’t notice anything else missing, in fact I had to cross stuff off my list because there was no room in the cart (don’t even ask what my total was).  They had a queue set up, but there was no wait to get in.  I’d say about 40% were in masks.  Ours did not have the in-stock/out-of-stock board at the front like I’ve seen in pictures.

Aldi - Waited about 10 minutes in line, as they were only letting in 22 at a time.  Still no cleaning products and didn’t see any TP or PT, but I found chicken there.  The sweet/yellow onions looked AWFUL, but red were fine.  Everything else fully stocked.  Mask usage up to about 60% there.

I didn’t look for yeast at either place.  I bought a brick of it in January before things got crazy.

However, I did find out why masks are so awesome. No one knows you are singing along to the radio in the car.

[prairiewindmomma]

We bought yeast and flour in early March after we couldn't find bread in the stores. I think a lot of people had the same idea. Demand shift.

One thing that I haven't heard talked about enough is all of the supply chain hiccups we are having.  Food on the restaurant side is being wasted and producers are hurting. Notably, a lot of produce is not being picked up from central warehouses to be distributed to restaurants.  Farmers are literally plowing under their crops so that they can continue to be subsidized by the federal government.  On the retail side, demand is up a LOT because kids aren't eating in schools, people aren't eating in restaurants (at least to the same degree), and so people are buying more retail groceries.

Free markets work only when information flows freely.  Somehow the supplies on the restaurant side aren't making an easy transition to retail (or to food banks). I really hoped a lot of this could be purchased by food banks to help everybody out. 

[Sherry in OH]

NW Arkansas.  I went shopping at 7 am.  No lines although someone was outside tallying the number of people who entered and exited.   

The store was reasonably well-stocked.  

The most noticeable lacks were in the baking, bread, and dairy aisles - no yeast, no whole wheat flour, no bread flour, and very little all purpose flour; no tortillas, few buns/rolls, no English muffins, limited selection of sandwich breads, no store-brand hazelnut spread; limited butter, milk, and eggs.   Eggs were limited to one dozen per customer.  I don't remember the limit on milk.   The snack aisle was also fairly bare, but it was being restocked as I walked past.

The canned goods aisles were well-stocked.  There were gaps on the rice shelf but there seemed to be plenty of rice so I am not sure what was missing. I did notice the store is now stocking 5, 10, and 20 pound bags of rice. There were dried beans, including a few varieties I never noticed before.  I wonder if shipments meant for other markets were diverted to fill the shelves.  

The freezer aisle was fairly well stocked.  Frozen vegetables and meats seemed plentiful.  The only frozen items I looked for but couldn't find were Morningstar Farms products.  The store had some but not the variety ds wanted.    

There seemed to be plenty of paper towels.  There were fewer than normal brands and varieties of toilet paper and no jumbo packs, but there was some.  Toilet paper was limited to one per customer.  Liquid hand soap was also limited to one per customer. 

In the pharmacy area, many allergy and cold and flu remedies are back in stock, but not all.  

I will have to go shopping again later this week.  Mostly for produce, but also for the items I couldn't find or forgot to pick up.  

 

[Shoeless]

Texas, San Antonio area.  

Everything was pretty well stocked at 4pm today, with a few exceptions: tp, paper towels, hand sanitizer.  Those were still out.  Eggs, flour, Mr. Clean, and hand soap were available but there was only a little left of each. Canned goods, pasta, and dairy have "recovered" from the initial panic buying. They even had ramen noodles on the shelf.  Meat, fish, and bakery departments were fully stocked. Lots of fresh produce available.  No limit on milk or other dairy products that I saw. The only limits I saw were 8 for canned items, 1 for tp/paper towels, 2 for hand soap, 4 pasta. 

Laundry soap seemed low. I guess everyone is finally catching up on laundry, lol. 

I've been spending a lot more at the grocery lately, but we've also been buying some fancy-pants stuff since food is all we spend money on now.  We've been eating salmon, ribeyes, and sirloin roasts.  It feels weird. We're eating really well and there's all this really heavy, bad stuff going on in the world.  It's a little bit of cognitive dissonance right now. 

I actually felt a lot better after seeing the store today. Several people were wearing masks and gloves. I wore a mask and cotton gloves, (allergic to nitrile), and the store had masks available for any staff member that wanted to wear them. They had hand sanitizer and wipes stations at the door, and employees were wiping down carts. There are plastic dividers up between the cashier and customer.  They were not limiting people in the store at that time, but it wasn't very crowded, either. 

[sassenach]

3 hours ago, GoodGrief1 said:

I actually found a 5 pack of Clorox wipes in Costco this morning (went right at opening)

My mom scored toilet paper, paper towels, and clorox wipes at Costco this weekend. I told her to pick up a lotto ticket.

 

[Forget-Me-Not]

N CA (north of Sacramento)

Got to Costco 9:20-9:30. No waiting to get in (but it was raining—part of the reason I went; I figured fewer people would be willing to be out and wait in line). Store very well stocked, including lots of TP and paper towels (and people were not swarming around it). The only thing I couldn’t find was cases of chopped tomatoes. They even had AP flour. 
 

Then went to Target. Not as well stocked, but I did get some liquid hand soap and female sanitary supplies (in the brands I wanted). I saw a fair amount of toilet paper too. 
 

Next stop: Winco. Pretty crowded. Fairly well stocked except it looks like they aren’t refilling the bulk bins as they empty and they had several prepackaged bulk items for sale in plastic containers (similar to the containers for the natural peanut butter dispenser). I forgot to check to see if they had toilet paper, but the paper and baby products aisles looked pretty stripped.  Cashiers ringing/checking one customer at a time rather than doing the dual thing they usually do. 
 

Last stop: Walmart. They’re now limiting customers in the store and have shopping cart barrier set up to control a line, but there was no waiting when I went. They were the least well stocked of the 4 places I went, but they did have name-brand TP in stock. I only needed a few things and found them all. Forgot Diet Coke 😐. 
 

All in all I was pleased. It looks like maybe the panic buying is settling down here. Lots of people in masks and/or gloves, including a quite a few that were using the masks incorrectly. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by Forget-Me-Not

[Laurie]

Seattle

I arrived just after opening at 6am this morning.   A man was leaving the store carrying only a package of Charmin so I hurried in and went to that aisle first.  There were 4 remaining so I got 1 and was able to use my soon- to -expire coupon!    The baby wipes are right across from tp and there wasn't a single package.

No hand sanitizers or disinfecting wipes.  Very low on disinfecting cleaners.  No alcohol (the rubbing kind).  

Thankfully there was a lot of food!!!

The store I usually go to has new hours and opens at 8am for the general public but people 60+ and pregnant women are allowed in daily at 7am.   Maybe they're buying all the toilet paper?  The store I went to today has special hours for older people and those with health issues but the special shoppers are limited to special hours Tues/Thurs from 7am-9am so at least there's a fair chance for everyone else to get to the store early to try for some tp.  

 

 

[mom2scouts]

DH went to the store today. He found small packages of off brand toilet paper (4 very small rolls) with a limit of two and individually packaged toilet paper. There hasn't been any at all for awhile so it's an improvement. He did pretty well with food, but he wasn't looking for canned stuff. He said the store was almost empty except for employees shopping for pick up.

[Arcadia]

50 minutes ago, Forget-Me-Not said:

Next stop: Winco. Pretty crowded. Fairly well stocked except it looks like they aren’t refilling the bulk bins as they empty and they had several prepackaged bulk items for sale in plastic containers (similar to the containers for the natural peanut butter dispenser). 

Safeway here sealed the bulk bin area. Sprouts prepackaged everything that used to be in their bulk bins. 

[cjzimmer1]

3 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

  Somehow the supplies on the restaurant side aren't making an easy transition to retail (or to food banks). I really hoped a lot of this could be purchased by food banks to help everybody out. 

One of the local distributors to restaurants is shifting gears and offering to sell to the public.  They tell people to just order and they will find out their total at pickup (many people complained that they need to know the price before they committed).  I did finally get them to quote me the case prices of about a dozen things.  Since my family is so big, I figured getting a case would be great and I could just freeze the extra produce.  Wrong.  Their case prices (which were supposedly better than the smaller quantities they were offering to people) were 50- 100% higher than buying the item at the grocery store.  I can't for one minute think this was anywhere close to what they were charging restaurants.  Needless to say I didn't buy anything.  But I can't imagine that the food banks could have afforded to buy from that distributor either.

[KungFuPanda]

Ugh. I plan to go Wednesday and hit Costco when they open. Aldi and Trader Joe’s is in the same lot so I’ll fill in with one of those. It’s hard to do a quick, surgical strike when you don’t know what will be there. Y’all have me wondering what I’ll find. 
 

My bidet attachment arrived today so if I strike out with the tp I have a back up plan. 

[klmama]

2 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

 It’s hard to do a quick, surgical strike when you don’t know what will be there. 

Or where it will be.  I saw several things in odd places at Costco on my last trip.  Usually they have all frozen veggies together, but the broccoli was in the next aisle next to the hot dogs. Dried mango was an aisle over by the quinoa, instead of with the other dried fruits.  The trail mix was with the crackers, not by the nuts. I was glad I had decided to move fast and hit every aisle!  

[73349]

Central NC, sent DH to Food Lion (large, low-cost chain) at 7 AM today.

There was fruit--he bought clementines and blackberries--and yogurt. No chicken we could be sure is safe for DS. None of the ice cream we wanted. No rice cups that are safe for DS, and little rice of any kind. (I'm still sick and wanted easy calories for us.) Still none of the tortilla chips we buy. Having to screen for allergens already sucked & DH is not that experienced at it, so... whatever, we're not starving. I should've had him get dishwasher detergent, but we have a couple weeks' left, I think. I suspect part of the run on convenience foods is that people like DH have limited cooking experience and are having to do more than they want, especially for kids' lunches.

Whole Foods' being open fewer hours has kept us from going at all: DH has to work, and I'm still coughing. A fair number of our usual foods can only be found there. I'm not sending him all the way to Aldi just for the mac and cheese for DS's lunches, which is all we get there. I may pay $$ for somebody to shop at Wegmans for us if I'm still sick in a few more days.

CSA delivery tomorrow will include eggs and veggies. 💛 DH has ordered a ham for Easter from Jones Dairy Farm. I ordered bar soap from Etsy; we have plenty of liquid right now.

[barnwife]

Rural Midwest
We stopped at  a gas station for milk and eggs. (DH and kids waited in the car.) We weren't sure if there would be a limit on anything at Walmart, so we stopped there too in case of limits. They had no limits on milk. They had a limit on butter, I think because it was super on sale. The limit on eggs was 2 dozen. Many customers wore masks; staff were mostly not. Walmart was counting customers and strictly enforcing the enter/exit lanes. They had social distancing waiting spots by the checkout. I'd say 75% of customers were wearing masks, but again very few staff were. They had no whole wheat flour, but some all-purpose and some bread flour. There was a limit on loaves of bread (1). 

We also voted. They had spots marked for waiting and were using different doors for entrance/exit. All good things in light of the pandemic, but...I can't remember ever waiting behind more than 3 people (and I think one of those was DH). So they probably didn't need so many spots marked. Maybe the poll workers were bored. Only 2 workers did not have masks and gloves. They had us wipe down our licenses before voting and wiped machines in between. Curbside voting was apparently also an option.

[Acadie]

Northeast Ohio.

No cream cheese! I'm shopping once every 10 days, and haven't been able to find any for a month. It's weird--is cream cheese comfort food or what?

[PrincessMommy]

Just got back from a store run:

No eggs or paper products (but I didn't ask at the front desk - I hear they're keeping TP up there)

tuna fish was slim but I was able to get several cans of our favorite kind: White albacore in water.  Freezer aisle was hit or miss.  Forget finding pizza and veggies, but plenty of frozen breakfast, dinners, and ice cream.  Very random. 

Lots of meat, especially for Easter dinner.   produce aisle seemed fully stocked.  Lots of milk.   

Oddly enough there was no  Worcestershire sauce.  I don't know why.   But, we needed it and it wasn't there.

 

I found that I was much more distracted by other shoppers.  I didn't want to be too close and I didn't want to be in their way either.  It made shopping a more stressful experience. 

Also, what is with the produce aisle??   It where everyone seems to congregate and few people are practicing social distancing.  It happened last time I went too.  It was stressful. 

[PrincessMommy]

2 hours ago, Acadie said:

Northeast Ohio.

No cream cheese! I'm shopping once every 10 days, and haven't been able to find any for a month. It's weird--is cream cheese comfort food or what?

I didn't notice that at my store.  It seemed like the cheese and sour cream area was fully stocked. 

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, Acadie said:

Northeast Ohio.

No cream cheese! I'm shopping once every 10 days, and haven't been able to find any for a month. It's weird--is cream cheese comfort food or what?

Cream cheese is useful for baking cheesecake 🙂

[maize]

Or local store was well stocked this morning, there was even toilet paper--limited selection and a one package per customer buying limit but I got a 30 roll pack.

Aside from the toilet paper/Kleenex/paper towel aisle, where shelves were definitely scanty, I noticed that diapers were in short supply.

In other parts of the store there were occasional empty slots where some product was sold out but no entire categories missing that I noticed. There were signs listing allowable substitutions for WIC items.

The parking lot was the emptiest I have seen it in the past month.

[maize]

Plenty of cream cheese today, though I did notice it was sold out a couple of weeks ago.

[maize]

Oh yeah, canned chicken was in short supply. They didn't have the kind I usually buy, only a limited selection of more expensive brands.

[Arcadia]

@mathnerd no milk rationing at my nearby Safeway (forgot which thread it was you mentioned)

Reached Safeway at 1:23pm. Food wise, everything was in stock. I didn’t go to the bakery aisle as there was a crowd there so can’t tell if flour and yeast are in stock. 
 

We aren’t allowed to bring our own bags per the county’s latest advice. Top photo from Trader Joe’s, bottom green photo from Safeway. 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Arcadia
Typed the wrong time