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The Real (And Hidden) Reasons Grocery Store Shelves Are Empty
Grocery store shelves are empty across the United States and the reasons are much more complex than that your neighbors over-purchased. The real reasons are hidden in a web of supply and demand forces, and your fellow shoppers are only one piece of the puzzle.
There are a lot of moving parts in feeding people, and the empty shelves are really caused by the junction of forced, immediately changed consumer behavior (demand) and limited flexibility in the way food is packaged and delivered (supply).
The simplest explanation is that several sudden demand-side changes happened at the same time as one significant supply change happened, the flow of food needed to change as suddenly as demand changed for everyone to get food. Supply side changes just can’t happen that quickly. Solutions can sound just as complex, but are remarkably simple if we choose principled actions over fear-based reactions in the future.
Changes in Demand:
Three significant and sudden changes have occurred to food demand in the 2020 coronavirus pandemic thus far. The first change was that restaurants were forced to stop serving patrons at their locations for social distancing, and were only permitted to sell food for carry-out. Statista data for 2018 shows that 72% of Americans usually visited…
