GROCERY STORE SHORTAGES CONTINUE

In the past month, grocery stores across the United States have once again been experiencing stocking shortages for various items.

This is in many ways an extension of the ongoing shipping crisis that continues to trouble international trade, with new factors that have arisen since fall contributing to this ongoing problem on the domestic level. Among these are inclement weather, continued labor shortages, and the COVID-19 Omicron strain.

The most immediate effects of weather on the shortage are that winter snowstorms have stymied shipping in the American Northeast. Similar storms have also delayed West Coast shipping, from Washington state to Alaska.

While these have complicated the transporting part of supply lines, weather – as well as climate change – has also impacted other parts of the supply chain. For example, Brazil’s crops, such as coffee beans, have been hit with heavy rain that is negatively impacting production. Meanwhile, the United States, the availability of animal products and meat has been reduced while prices increase due to lower soy and corn yields attributed to climate change.

This has also contributed to the rising prices of fast food, an industry which has seen its largest one-year price increase since the early 2000s.

In some cases, the critical supply issue sits at the other end, after the goods have been shipped to where they need to go and it is simply a matter of stocking them on shelves. This is because of two employment issues that are entwined.

The labor shortages have largely been a result of the pandemic and the rise and fall of its various variants, the most recent strain being the milder yet highly infectious Omicron variant. Grocery store workers such as stockers are exposed to many people every day, and as such are likely to be exposed to the Omicron variant. As a result of this high exposure risk, some these workers have inevitably gotten sick and been unable to work. Then, there are the many retail workers who have quit of their own volition.

The consequence of these two factors is that a recent survey by the National Grocers Association found that many member grocers were operating stores with half of their normal workforce. As such, it is likely that most of the remaining employees are attending to work that cannot be left undone, examples being delis, checkout lanes, and curbside pickup. Stocking shelves thus gets lower priority.

While this all might seem rather troubling given that these have been persistent problems throughout the entire pandemic, it is worth noting that this is chiefly a result of the over-reliance on the “just-in-time” shipping model that most industries rely on. This fragile system works well in normal times, and yet these are still anything but normal times. As such, the delays for shipping are not so simple as items just not being available today, yet being in stock tomorrow. Furthermore, the current retail labor shortage means that even when these goods are in stock (have arrived in storerooms), they simply haven’t made it out to the shelves.

While inconvenient, these issues will likely fade, or at least be lessened, once the pandemic breaks – and working in person is no longer a major health risk for those who live with or are

acquainted with immunocompromised and elderly people, or who have their own underlying health concerns.