Empty shelves - how bad is it around you?

[Orangejuicemarathoner]

I'm currently visiting London, from the South coast.

Sainsbury's was a shocker

Whole fridges empty, with their shutters down.

Most other shelves a third full at best

Last time I went to the shops was about a week ago, on the south coast, and it wasn't that bad then, although I can't say about now. Some groceries missing, nothing like this

If it’s all down to lorry drivers why is it so patchy on certain items?

and why are my two lorry driver friends, who don't even know each other, both tell me independently that they are struggling to find work right now?

London. There are weird gaps, changing from week to week. One week it was cucumbers, another lettuce, sometimes I can't get free-range meat so haven't been buying meat at all some weeks. Bin bags have been a problem for about six weeks. I resorted to Amazon and bought 200. They don't go off so I will use them eventually!

Even when there aren't gaps, though, I have noticed very short shelf lives on stuff that would not normally have short dates. I'm shopping for smaller amounts more frequently so I don't end up with things I can't use. Would rather do online shopping but that has been fraught with rubbish dates recently.

I’m in NI the uk supermarkets (sainsburys, Tesco, m and s are pretty bad) the other shops with supply chains coming through ROI (Dunnes, SuperValu, Spar) are all fully stocked as normal

Nothing here - fully stocked (bucks)
I couldn’t get stork margarine on Ocado for the weekend.

Waitrose have had no pita bread for two weeks!

@Bookaholic73

These are your words pasted from your earlier post:

"All the supermarkets local to me (Cornwall) have had empty shelves for weeks."

That is a particularly graphic statement is it not? Scaremongering for certain. Perhaps you could post some photographs and state your location and then we can fact check.

Agree with @RaoulDufysCat in London.

Cat food has been an issue all year and there are patchy gaps every time you go but nothing, so far, to cause me to be alarmed. The sandwich aisle in the Coop struggles. You can tell there are issues in the background but the supermarkets are obviously working hard to overcome.

I’ve been waiting a long time for a sofa to come back into IKEA, I read they have shortages.

Christmas will be interesting

Went to buy a couple of pasta ready meals from sainsburys today (birmingham) and they didn't have a single one on the shelves. Complete waste of time.

Wales.

Tesco deliveries mostly fine, although a lot of the free-range / organic stuff is just not available and hasn't been for months.

Went to the coop today and it was shocking. Far worse than March 2020. Most of the chillers were very much empty - dairy, meat, fish, ready meals, chilled fruit and veg affected. A very striking sight.

I went to Tesco earlier today and they didn't have our favourite brand of bread (but there was plenty of other brands) and they'd run out of all but the most expensive brand of paracetamol and only had the 24 packs of Benadryl that cost >3x more than the 12 packs. Other than that we got everything we went for.

Lots of creative facing up in my Tesco, Hampshire. But thin on stock and sell by dates. Dairy with 2 days best before etc.

Booze getting lower on the shelf which could get interesting

Food wise there are certain things that seem much harder to get, chicken breasts for example are impossible unless frozen or you get a whole chicken for over a week.

However the thing I'm really struggling with is supplies for work. I work in a niche industry, however the supplies we use would be common in several industries one of which is construction so not at all niche. Usually I'd expect many hundreds if not thousands of these to be purchased nationally each day. I cannot currently find anywhere at all that has any in stock that are certified and definitely safe, unless I want to buy counterfeit items so instead I have staff driving the ones we do have between sites umpteen times a week. I should state these are common, cheap, non consumable, think of say a spirit level but they can be damaged and taken out of use or we need more as new sites are ready to start. It's been going on weeks now and I'm close to having to limit my business and reduce staff hours simply due to lack of supplies, which is very much the last thing I want to do when depending on region our sites were only allowed to open for 7-12 weeks from April 2020-March 2021 so we have a lot of catching up to do.

@Zeal you want to "fact check" photos from an anonymous poster on a parenting forum? 🤣🤣🤣 aye all right, calm down Bob Woodward 🤣😂🤣

@Shallwegoforawalk

Of course not. No need to get all emojied.

It's not going to happen, because it didn't happen.

We're editing ocado for delivery tomorrow. I think ours comes from their main warehouse. There's literally no ice cream available of any sort.

Hampshire. Normal here. I couldn't get a small pack of chicken the other day but there were others I just didn't want a big pack.

Lots of scaremongering on here..

online Morrisons.

My favourites list has shrunk to a third of the size.

I have not been able to get cheap sparkling water for three months or at all for two months. it is just coming back in now occasionally.

lots of things are out of stock so can not add them to the shopping basket but still able to do a full shop just not as varied.

last week I had three substitutions and a not available, this week, three subs. This is not normal for Morrisons. (but not half as much of an issue as at Asda)

a couple of friends have mentioned that things are out of stock in Morrisons shop so there are a few issues there. I don't think they have been so out fo stock as not to get stuff.

I just did my Tesco online shop. Of the 296 items on my favourites list, 54 of them are unavailable. Half of those have no alternative to buy. There are no fresh chicken breasts, no bottled water, no lettuce, no frozen mixed veg etc. This has been typical for the last couple of months.

People think “oh my store is fully stocked” but when you look closely, it’s just that they have moved stock ot fill any gaps so it doesn’t look like there are spaces on the shelves.

have not been able to get cheap sparkling water for three months or at all for two months. it is just coming back in now occasionally.

None in Tesco either. But, they do have cartons of fresh orange juice which have been missing for months.

@GeorgiaGirl52 Where are you? I was just in Publix this am and there were none of the items missing you listed,thankfully. Full chip aisle, plenty of grapes and chicken wasn't quite as pricy as you said. I'm in a suburb of Atlanta. A month or so I noticed significantly less stock and bare shelves at Target and I asked an employee what happened and they said it was back to school stock ups-not just typical lunch snacks and school supplies but everything (dog food, cleaning supplies)

Southern Scotland, local co-op, empty fridges. GF section-dire. However, in the nearest large supermarket, some empty shelves. GF pasta - low, other GFgoods are there one week, not there the next. Plenty sausage, bacon, gammon and mince, some chicken and lamb. I couldn't say re bottled water as don't buy it. There was diluting juice and fruit juice. I could not get the one pint size of milk, but, there were plenty larger size cartons. I think sometimes they are waiting on deliveries. Certainly not the variety we are used to having but in a way I find it makes shopping easier. If it's not there I either do without or buy something else. What worries me more is the price rises, £1.35 for 500g frozen stir-fry veg. GF flour £1.70 a kilo. I used to pay about 1.25 a kilo and the flour seems to go up every time I buy it. I really don't know how the less well off manage and having to go GF is an absolute pain. All the GF food is more expensive.

Gloucestershire.

Patchy stocking in supermarkets. I did get an Asda order through the other day without any substitutions - but I think that's more because the things I wanted were showing out of stock right from the start so I couldn't order them at all!

Chicken seems to be a particular problem - Sainsburys and Asda both have empty sections regularly with no chicken at all. I couldn't get eggs tonight and the worst thing of all: NO BROWNIES!!! I was not happy. Priorities.

But on a more serious note, there have been regular shortages - and I've noticed the use by dates seem to be very short too.

Other than chicken (that I usually buy a lot of) the things which I've also noticed are going short include cucumber, broccoli, pasta, red grapes, raspberries, ready meals, bread, eggs and Coke. Oh, and weirdly peach squash.

I've noticed that Asda and Sainsburys seem to be particularly badly affected, with Tesco and Aldi having some issues but not quite as obvious.

My town has a Sainsburys and a Co Op. Sainsburys is fine but Co Op had absolutely nothing in it.

Central London -
Waitrose - thin and patchy but not too bad. Much less of many stock items on shelves but they are there. Water shelves beginning to have stock. Fruit and veg limited in store. Can’t rely on getting what planned but there are alternatives. Recent deliveries have been fine.
Coop - very sparse. Big fridges and freezers have been empty for weeks and now a sign on them saying they are awaiting repair in two shops. For some reason (empty spaces on shelves throughout shop) I’m not sure this is wholly true. Fruit and veg good stocks seemingly.
Food shopping just feels different - rigid cooking plans no longer always possible.