I occasionally goto big grocery stores that have more then the one I usually go to has. I want specific things that I can only find there. This week they didnt have most of it. I also notice things on the shelves are expired. I usually always check dates and all.......

Ah man!!

I don't know what you mean by big grocery stores, Dude. I get delivery from a moderate size grocery store, and some things they don't have, but I also believe more and more are getting online delivery. My friend gets me stuff from Whole Foods and no shortages there. When I've found a outdated prepared salad some months ago, I called the store mgr and gave them "H"... haven't seen one since.

Several of my favorite items have been in chronic short supply. Campbell's soups (V-8 juice, etc) had shifted much of it's production to a plant in Canada, and when the border got locked down, that created a real problem for them. I understand they have moved quite a bit of production back to within our borders.

Plus, I'm sure you've heard about the parking lot of container ships waiting off the pacific coast for their turn to unload. There is a problem with freight receivers not returning the chassis that haul containers, when they are delivered to their destination ..... labor shortages in warehouses getting much of the blame. But anyway the shortage of chassis meant that containers already shipped by rail to inland locations were stacking up in the Railroads yards, because there were no chassis to haul the containers out. SO the major railroads started to embargo containers,.. refusing to receive them, because they had no place to put them. That clogged up the west coast ports, and many ships have been refused dock space for weeks....sitting off shore twiddling their thumbs waiting for warehouse workers in Chicago to return to work.

And, many local manufacturers have suspended production of their lower volume products, so they can devote the resources available to them to producing their best sellers.

Hope this helps,

Walmart in our area have some bare shelves. It really looks strange. My husband wanted Pepto Bismol and they were out, even their store brand was gone. One of the employees said the manufacturers were not sending them merchandise that they ordered. I ended up going to the Dollar Store. They had the items that Walmart didn't. Man I dread the holidays, they will be out of everything.