Why don’t supermarkets preempt “stuff”

[Iamnotagoddess]

Went shopping and though I’d get some ice lollies to stick in the freezer.

Four empty fridges where they had been totally raided.

Why don’t they preempt seasonal stuff?

At Christmas it’s mincemeat and sausage meat.

Bloody annoys me.

All the supermarkets in my area had sufficient stock of ice creams and ice lollies. So they do take note of the weather. As a PP indicated it is probably the freezers breaking down or being at too high a temperature.

Or is it just British people going nuts over things?

I've never seen this in New York or anywhere else in the US. It's been over 40 here on and off and there's no shortage whatsoever of ice cream or Popsicles (what we call ice lollies).

Most of the freezers on Tesco Express, Sainsburys and Asda locally seem to have broken down. There is a backlog for repairs of around a week.

The freezers and fridges in the supermarket i currently work at all broke down every afternoon for the past 3 days. No one could have predicted that and is one of the reasons lots of our shelves are empty.

If you haven't worked in a supermarket i don't think you realise how small the storage space is or how frequent deliveries have to come in to just keep it ticking. We get 2 deliveries of chilled products and produce a day. 1 frozen delivery a day and 2 grocery deliveries a day. And we still have out of stock items because things sell so fast. Space costs money, so we've cages stacked 5 or 6 deep, so that some products are impossible to find.

And finally it has been a heatwave. People want ice cream in a heatwave. People buy lots of it, shocking right. There isn't enough staff to have just 1 person restocking ice creams all day. We've 1 person that restocks all 4 frozen aisles during the day

Yeah but people actually kill each other on Black Friday Miss so you know, I'd rather have no popsicles.

Maybe just a crap manager?

It's highly unlikely that store managers will have much (if anything) to do with stock ordering. It'll all be done by head office using the data they hold from each stores' tills.

@Kazzyhoward

Ooh I didn’t know that - interesting!!

They do.
But you could have bought lollies ages ago too.

If a supermarket has 2 freezers for ice cream and lollies, then all they can do is fill them. If they sell out, that's it until the next order comes in, maybe tomorrow, maybe 2 days' time. They can't store excess stock in the freezer for chicken pies or the one for chips.

We used to have a "corner shop" and a large chest freezer for ices etc. In the very hot summers of the 70s, it could be full in the morning once the delivery had come, but empty by mid afternoon. There wasn't room for another freezer in the shop so we couldn't order more.

I'm a supply chain planner so deal with Mr Tesco et al from the other side. They supply an 18 month forecast based on year on year data, and the manufacturers plan their supply based on that.

They do come in for extra orders in situations like this, but so does everybody else- if the stock isn't there, nothing can be done.

The thing is, though, in the heatwave, however many things like lollies and fans they have in stock, they'll sell them and still have people who come in afterwards who are disappointed to have missed out.

It's a bit like tickets for huge bands and singers (Ed Sheeran, Rolling Stones etc - not up to speed with all of the latest!) - however massive a venue they organise gigs at, it's a certainty that they're going to sell out anyway.

I can see why you're annoyed, but they can only carry so much stock
It's the same in that you could've preempted and got it a few weeks ago. But you didn't, you waited until it was hot and you knew you'd need it. They are the same, just on a much larger scale.

This ^

Just be glad they aren't like the clothes shops - they have all of the summer stuff in winter and vice versa and sometimes look at you blankly if you try to buy something appropriate for the actual current season.

People don't help by acting like vultures

Yeah but you would think they would know about the heatwave and predict that they are going to sell more of something

Did you know about the heatwave and predict that you'd fancy some ice-lollies?

16 degrees today and pishing with rain - we are having steak pie and cake and custard :o

@Glitterblue

Exactly

Supply chain forecasting will have accounted for regular seasonal spikes for things like ice lollies, but they can't factor in something like a heatwave because we only know about them just before they happen. As other PPs have said - they'd far rather sell out than be stuck with old stock.

People don't help by acting like vultures

And supermarkets don't help by only stocking multi-packs. People who only "want" a couple are forced to buy a box. You can serve far fewer people with multipacks from a fixed size freezer than you could if you were selling singles.

With the weather we have had this week, it must be really hard to keep on top of demand ,Children on summer holidays .Record temperatures recorded .We live on the South Coast ,and our local S/B had plenty of Magnums /Solero /fruit lollies left .

I brought 4 boxes of lollies on Monday, they were selling like hot cakes in Morrisons, they still had plenty of stock available, otherwise I wouldn’t have brought so many.

as @alison says, logistics are much more complex than you realise. It isn't personal. Most food goods e.g. lollies have a limited shelf life. No supermarket wants to risk having to throw food away just because the heatwave didn't generate as much demand as they thought it would. If they did that, then ALL food would cost more.

Yeah but you would think they would know about the heatwave and predict that they are going to sell more of something, like de-icer when there is snow.

They do (apologies for DM link).

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2026439/Supermarkets-use-weather-predictions-decide-stock.html

My son works in Logistics for a major supermarket chain, and his speciality is cold and fresh supply. They work on national weather forecasts, predicting hot weather and the surge in demand. But stores can only hold so much stock and then have to wait for their next day delivery.

Having said that I wanted ice cubes yesterday and none were on display but when I asked a member of staff got some from the back freezer, they were selling quicker than they could stock up.

Tesco was out of cucumbers in my local one today, not sure who is eating them all?