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My niece does a lot of canning..

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">She reached out to the family a couple of weeks ago asking us all to look for canning lids.  She couldn't find any where she is.  We found some on Amazon but the prices seemed high to her.  I don't know if they are always that price or jacked up given the demand.</span>
 
I found a very small selection of lids and rings at Walmart, then Ace hardware. I don't do much in the way of canning, but with the success of the tomatoes last year I'm repeating this year. I also do refrigerator pickles but I can re-use cleaned lids for those since they're not processed.

Eddie, Bob, We bought a pack of Brawny select-a-size at Lowes maybe 2 months ago because they had it. Not only does it allow the 1/2 sheet as all select-a-size, but each half-sheet is perforated in half the other way so you can just use a 1/4 sheet! Might be something to look into where you use so little already!

Chuck
 
Chuck

thats good to know about the new Brawny Select a size paper towels.  Thanks for the heads up on this.  I hate to waste paper or anything else.  If we all conserve more of everything maybe we can get a handle on reversing Climate Change that is causing all the natural disasters we are currently experiencing.

 

Eddie
 
Went to ....

Walmart yesterday. Everything back to normal now. No signs placed by certain items saying you can only purchase one of the items. All TP and paper towels fully stocked, clorox wipes back and to capacity. Only thing different ...... hand sanitizer can be found in multiple parts of the store and in every checkout isle now. Face masks, the same way. Can be purchased by the single or the box, and if you are fashion conscious, they have them in all different colors ..... even in your favorite college football logos. Well except for Ohio, LOL
 
I was in our local Shoppers Food Warehouse and a gallon of off-brand bleach was $7 which I consider gouging, but it was there if you had to have it. Also saw for the first time ever Clorox bleach packets, little square packets of dry chlorine bleach. I don't know how well that would work with he machines using so little water; seems like you could get fabric damage. Seems like it would be better to put them in the dispenser to give the stuff a chance to get diluted during fill, except like with the tablets they introduced in the 90s, the fill was too short to dissolve the tablet and there was not enough water in the drum to dissolve it either. I had to smush them up to use them.
 
HyVee Grocery

Oddest Item Not Available: Jars of sliced green olives. There'd been a big gap where the tall, slender jars of sliced olives should have been for the past two weeks. When shopping today, they'd filled in the gap with additional jars of pimiento-stuffed olives. Asked the day manager and he said they've ordered them several times, but no luck.

No gel-style hand sanitizer. I do not like the watery stuff that comes in plastic honey jars and smells like nail polish remover.

Out of stock for months: Lysol Pro Kitchen Disinfecting Cleaner. Finally just ordered a gallon of concentrated sanitizer from Sam's Club which is COVID-rated. Two tablespoons of sanitizer, 30-oz. of water. Also ordered a gallon of their glass cleaner, since that seems to be hard to get at Hy-Vee lately.

On the upside, they'd just loaded the shelf with HyVee-brand disinfecting wipes, so was able to score two big containers of those.

Made my day: PERSIL PRO-CLEAN + STAIN FIGHTER!! Bought two big jugs of that. They also had regular Persil ProClean. Haven't seen Persil on the shelf for ages. Our detergent section is basically just 20 variations of Tide
and the super-cheap crap. Think I saw some jugs of Purex, as well. Pods seem to be making a comeback.

Bought my Thanksgiving turkey, a box of Stove-Top Stuffing and a little bag of Idahoan Buttery Homestyle instant mashed potatoes--they're really quite good.

Our small family has decided not to gather for Thanksgiving. No final decision on Christmas at this point, but quite honestly I don't see it happening, either.

We've seen a steady increase in cases here in the rural, southwest part of the state. My doctor is in isolation, but don't know whether he tested positive or was contact-traced from an exposure.

My sister and brother-in-law live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which has seen a very dramatic rise in cases hospitalizations. Minnehaha County had consistently hovered around 55-75 hospitalizations until about a month after the Sturgis Bike Rally, surprise, surprise. They were at 395 yesterday.
 
Who'd-a-thunkit...

a shortage of sliced green olives?

 

As discussed in another thread, it seems we'll be seeing shortages again with the surge in CV cases. With that in mind I did pick up 1 additional bag of each frozen veg that I was buying anyway, one extra pack of TP and one of paper towels. If we each just stock a little extra and don't panic, maybe the supply chain will be able to keep up.

 

The store I went to was Market Basket, a locally owned discount chain. All the frozen stuff was very full. The TP and PT areas were fully stocked, but with limited brands. 

 

We split a gallon of 99% isopropyl with another friend back in April when nothing else was available. We use it, diluted to aprox 75% in small spray bottles, for cleaning groceries mostly as we have plenty of gel sanitizer (thank you Dollar Tree!). I do also use the spray to disinfect the microphones as needed during backyard social-distancing karaoke, but I don't think it'll be warm enough to do that again this year. It was a bit chilly a week ago Saturday when we did it last.

 

Hoping for the best,

Chuck
 
I Went to the Target Geezer Hour

this morning at 8 am as I now do every week.  Most everything is back to normal.  However, I did notice that there were empty shelves in the paper towel aisle, but there were still paper towel available.  And they were out of the Target brand of butter, but I have 5 lbs in the freezer, so I’m good.

 

 I was the first customer in the store when the doors opened and armed with my list I was at the checkout in 15 mins flat with my whole weeks groceries, out to the car by 8:22am and home by 8:29 am.

 

 I’m SO grateful that Target still has this special concession for the elderly and otherwise compromised.  Its a real public service.  And the staff at my local Target are just simply the nicest people around, always helpful and with a smile on their faces too.

 

I also bought our turkey last week, a 9.75 lb. Butterball.  I thought I was getting the largest frozen Butterball Turkey Breast, but thats OK, I’ll just have to make some turkey chili with the dark meat.  If I can snag a frozen turkey breast before Thanksgiving I’ll get one of those too.  We like LOTS of white meat turkey at Thanksgiving time for sandwiches, yum.

 

And Chuck, I also have been buying an extra bag or two of frozen vegetables every week too.  I always have at least one backup of every item that we use regularly.  I like to have a well stocked pantry.

 

Eddie
 
Eddie— The opposite turkey issue almost happened to me this morning. I was digging around and found what I thought was a 9-lb. whole turkey, only to find it was a frozen breast. Wound up with a 14-lb. turkey and since I’m on my own and prefer dark meat, I’ll make Hot Cheesy Turkey Sandwiches with the breasts. There’s a 2-lb. box of Velveeta in the pantry that needs to be used, so it works out perfectly. I portion the mixture so each container will make four sandwiches using standard hamburger buns—and into the freezer they go. We see a lot of the Cheesy Turkey in Crock-Pots at graduation receptions around here. Back when we had graduation receptions to go to, anyway.

Chuck— I actually questioned picking up two jugs of Persil, but hadn’t seen it for so long that I went for it. I really hope our Hy-Vee puts limits on items much sooner than they did back in March-April. They let a lot of people walk out with a cart overflowing with packages of toilet paper or thirty 1-lb. rolls of ground beef while the rest of us stood empty-handed going WTF?! Your backyard Karaoke sounds like fun. The temps have dropped a lot here the past three weeks, marking the end of outdoor activities.
 
 

 

The only store I go to personally is Trader Joe's since they don't have delivery. The one I go to is at Essex Crossing in Manhattan. Parking can be an issue but I always find a metered spot eventually. This Trader Joe's is huge, wide aisles, always nearly empty. Nirvana. As far as I can tell, everything is in abundance. Of course it doesn't have the variety as say Shop-Rite or ACME, but the quality of it's offering's is quite good and the prices excellent.

 

I recently signed up for Fresh Direct, and they were OK. I found their prices a bit higher and their selection meh. Delivery was fast though. A little over an hour. I am signing up for as many grocery delivery apps as I can. I remember how awful it was trying to get groceries back in March. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners will be immediate family affairs. I'm already stocked up with paper products until the spring of next year. Plus 5 gallons of bleach. Disinfectant wipes are again in short supply. Only Home Depot seems to have them, and all off brand. Disinfectant sprays are still MIA. I am down to my last can from the supply I bought back in January. N95 masks are available, but they're China brands. Anything 3M is a distant memory.
 
Paper towels in short supply? But not TP?

Last weekend I tried to stock up on paper towels at a Chicago area Woodman's (Wisconsin based chain with massive stores and low prices). They only had one brand in individual roll packaging with a limit of four per customer per day, yet their toilet paper aisle was stocked completely, although it still had odd brands such as from Mexico (which I've seen in other stores - even with full Spanish packaging, in non-Latino areas too).
 
UGH!

Rich told me that on the news yesterday they were talking about a possible lockdown and about "stocking the pantry." It's just like when it's supposed to snow; "Milk & bread! Milk & bread!"

 

Chuck
 
Doing my marketing (and for my mom) tomorrow - will report back on Chicago area shortages, if any. We're probably going to Caputo's though, which isn't quite a "normal" grocery store in the sense it favors the, what's the word, Italian side of the food triangle (or kitchen if you prefer).
 
Just went to Walmart near me. Very little bacon, sausage or lunchmeat, spices decimated as reported in newspaper. Only paper towels were the multi- type which I hate! And no carrots-just bags and bags of mini type. And no one could say when they'd be getting more! Cleaning isle decimated as well, even the cleansers. Got 99% of what was on list! Greg
 
Ended up getting paper products at Menard's - no shortage or limits.

Grocery's at Pete's which was pretty much normal, no shortages of anything in particular that I could tell.
 
Now a shortage of

organic and free range chicken form Ormand Indiana. Miller poultry, Katie's, etc. We don't eat the corn fed, or broth injected. Hope I can find some today, or Bell & Evans at the gourmet market. It all costs around $6.60/lb. You are what ya eat!
 
Here we go again!

Our daughter couldn't get any T.P. at the store over the weekend. So for a laugh, I spotted this on the Walthers model trains website yesterday; You can have a look if you want. Just go there and type in the search box: Busch HO COVID toilet paper transport
It's a blue Mercedes Benz Vito van with a guy carrying it with signs for safety and testing.
This state has the highest infection rate since June 4th., but peaked on Nov. 5th.
A friend from our gym (we havn't been there) is quarantined now. She doesn't wear a mask, and flew to Nashville 2 weeks ago for a wedding. She isn't sick, but was exposed. A neighbor's boss and sister have it. He is hospitalized with blood gasses of only 80. They were at a 50th. birthday party last week in a small banquet room.
Guests were wearing masks at first, but you know things go after drinking starts. The lady who is 50 was the spreader. Stay safe all!
 
We'd some odd items missing back in March, during the first lockdowns here but since then everything's been normal and I haven't really seen any item run short, even though we're currently in a 2nd 'shelter at home' type situation, although it's no where near as weird as the first time around.

 

Most of the issues here were driven by panic buying, which didn't last all that long here anyway. People calmed down pretty rapidly.

 

Supermarkets all operate to a just-in-time supply system, with extensive modelling of normal demand. If you suddenly have large numbers of people buying very strange quantities of specific items, shelf stock will run low quite rapidly and that then just drives more panic as people see empty shelves.

 

They countered it by really emphasising that stock wasn't low and actually explaining their stock planning algorithms in quite some depth and the government also stepped up to the plate, guaranteeing supply chain integrity.

 

Supermarkets also ran in-store announcements with messages like: "Our supply chains are strong. This store receives multiple deliveries every day. Please, only buy what you need. There is no need to bulk buy"

 

and they stocked large displays of the items that were being panic bought, like toilet rolls. So when you walked into my local supermarket, there was a huge pyramid of toilet paper - the logic was to get people to stop freaking out.

 

There were definitely some tight lines though, for example hand sanitiser was a niche product until March 2020. Most places had it in stock, but I mean who bought large quantities of hand santiser?  It's everywhere now and quite easy to find anywhere, and some of the big cosmetics brands like Garnier now sell it.

 

Masks etc are all quite easy to get now - almost every supermarket, pharmacy, convenience store, gas station etc etc stock a lot of that stuff now.

 

There were some really odd shortages in March though like you'd normally get a fairly wide range of hand washes, and for a few weeks you could only get strange versions that were clearly odd stock - like vast amounts of cherry scented Carex and weird seasonal variations that were clearly stuff they couldn't shift before.

 

Then some odd product lines where people were clearly panic buying went out of stock like a whole load of different pastas went short, one day I went in and they'd no canned tomatoes, yet they'd hundreds of other canned goods - various cooking sauces for curries, stir fries, pasta etc went a bit low for a while but then rapidly replenished and I think it was just entirely down to people buying them up and stockpiling them.

 

My local supermarket also briefly couldn't get various disinfectant sprays but started stocking quite cool professional versions - like they'd a very good Cif professional spray that both disinfected and polished. They sourced some really excellent professional 70% isopropyl alcohol wipes in very large drums and so on that proved really useful.

 

We went form that to this HUGE oversupply of all those products like you had endless disinfectants of every scent imaginable appearing and increasingly products started being approved as effective against coronavirus.

 

The other odd one was flour. The entire country decided they'd need to take up home baking and cleared out a years worth of flour in a week. Again, my local supermarket started selling catering packs which were by brands that would normally sell only to food services / restaurants etc.

 

There was actually no shortage of flour, it's just that home baking is more of a hobby than a staple these days and the mad rush to buy flour (most of which I would suspect is still sitting in cupboards) cleared the supply chains out.

 

Everything seems 100% normal now and we definitely didn't have any period where you couldn't get stuff - more just that you might have had a bit of a shortage of specific brands or less choice of brands back in March, but overall it was far from any kind of scary panic.

 
 
Oh .. one item I did struggle to get in March: Miele Twin Dos detergent cartridges.

 

They stopped taking online orders for quite a while during the first wave in Europe and I <span style="text-decoration: underline;">almost</span> had to resort to using Persil or Ariel Liquid (the horror!)

 

I'd say one risk faced now is, even if most countries get this back under control again, there could still be supply chains disrupted, particularly with things coming from parts of the world that might not have the best public health infrastructure for dealing with it.

 

I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if teas, coffees, chocolates, certain spices and so on come under pressure at some stage if there's a really big outbreak, but I suspect you could also see issues with supply chain disruption of other products that might be depending on key ingredients made in some less developed parts of the world - and that would probably include bulk chemicals in some cases, so you could yet see problems for a whole range of products if anything does go really out of hand.

 

That being said, the whole thing is about public health and basic cooperation to deal with sanitary measures, rather than necessarily being about access to ultra high tech medicine, and in many respects its some of the wealthiest parts of the world (and not just the US, but lots of European countries too) that appear to be mishandling it most spectacularly. 

 

Hopefully we'll have technical solutions to this in the next few months and we can finally begin to put this awful period behind us and it will just be a story we bore people with at over Xmas dinner: "Did I tell you kids about the Coronavirus back in 2020!"
 
Went to Lund's & Byerly's in Prior Lake 2 weeks ago:

Found them not to be out of anything except one special item that was selling out as soon as they got it in. Plenty of meat, produce, dairy, frozen, Deli and grocery items to be had. The cleaning/laundry and paper goods sections were fully stocked.

Last week @ Hy-Vee in Savage MN I found most things in stock with very few holes in the shelves. Have not been to Costco in a month or more. Have to go Monday. I will report what I see.
WK78
 
Went to Kroger yesterday, Friday.  Spotty  outages, but paper isle was 90 bare where it had been well stocked just last week.  Wanted 1 more package of my preferred TP, no luck.  Had to go to Walgreen's next they  had a decent selection, bought their last package of my preferred TP, but they had more of other size packages.  I think I'm good for the time being.
 
With Covid caes on the rise they're expecting shut-downs again. Hopefully everyone just gets one extra of what they need. Of course, those idiots who filled a shopping cart with TP back in March have enough 'till 2022!!!

 

Our freezer's at its normal level... 6' tall and probably 75% capacity, for just 2 of us and entertaining, which is scarce these days! Thank goodness for vac sealing!!!

 

Chuck
 
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