Speaker 1: It's Thursday, January. I'm Oscar and Mirrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America
Speaker 1: and some grocery stores around the country. We are again
Speaker 1: seeing empty shelves. Some of the reasons remain the same
Speaker 1: as early in the pandemic, others have changed slightly. The
Speaker 1: omicron surge, coupled with labor shortages, is making it difficult
Speaker 1: to keep things stocked. Supply chain issues in other countries
Speaker 1: are affecting us, and more people are eating at home.
Speaker 1: Laura Riley, business of food reporter at The Washington Post,
Speaker 1: joins us for What to Know. Thanks for joining us, Laura,
Speaker 1: so happy to be here. Well, pandemic life has been
Speaker 1: a series of never ending disruptions that's going to continue on. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this year we're seeing the surge of the omicron variant
Speaker 1: and all the disruptions that it's causing. There. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people are just getting infected, having a
Speaker 1: call out, sick of work, all this. But another thing
Speaker 1: we're seeing is, you know, some more grocery store shelves
Speaker 1: that are empty, kind of reminiscent of very early pandemic.
Speaker 1: And all through last year we saw a lot of disruption.
Speaker 1: Supply chain issues were a huge thing. But there's some
Speaker 1: four main reasons right now why it's happening all over again.
Speaker 1: Let's start with O Macron. I mean, that's one of
Speaker 1: the big things that's happening. Yeah, So we have this
Speaker 1: huge surge which has affected grocery store workers. Truckers were
Speaker 1: about eighty thousand truckers down right now, and you know
Speaker 1: some of that is the Great Resignation or the Big quit,
Speaker 1: whatever you're calling it. So in almost every sector, employers
Speaker 1: are having a hard time keeping enough workers. And now
Speaker 1: you add to this this huge explosion of infection, and
Speaker 1: you know, these people are not necessarily super sick, but
Speaker 1: they're calling out of work for five days however long.
Speaker 1: And a lot of them can't get their hands on
Speaker 1: rapid tests. So there's an impediment there to get them
Speaker 1: back in the in the building, in the office, in
Speaker 1: the in the grocery store. Because of that, So O
Speaker 1: Macron is reaking havoc. I mean, some of the CEO
Speaker 1: as I spoke with, said they have more absenteeism now
Speaker 1: than at any point during money. Yeah, and that's gonna
Speaker 1: you know, can keep continuing as the limited availability of tests.
Speaker 1: I know at my work, it's it's kind of the
Speaker 1: same rules. Hey, you got a test negative until you
Speaker 1: can come back. And you know, if you go take
Speaker 1: a PCR test, it could be up to forty eight
Speaker 1: hours for those results. These antigen tests are hard to
Speaker 1: come by. It's really tough to nail down the timing
Speaker 1: of all of that. And you know, we're talking about
Speaker 1: workers not being in the store. We're seeing also that
Speaker 1: thousands of grocery workers are going on strike in Colorado,
Speaker 1: about eight grocery workers are gonna be you know, not
Speaker 1: be reporting. So again, for those stores, it's tough to
Speaker 1: restock the shelves. So I mean, that's just gonna be
Speaker 1: kind of an ongoing thing until that even gets settled out.
Speaker 1: One of the other things that we're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of is the winter weather. So that's obviously puts a
Speaker 1: big hamper on a lot of things. Sure, so we
Speaker 1: had the mid Atlantic region, saw some punishing storm the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest, so we've we've really seen a number of
Speaker 1: parts of the country that have been affected by winter weather.
Speaker 1: We saw those pictures on nine five of those miles
Speaker 1: and miles of cars uck for twenty four hours. Well,
Speaker 1: a fair number of those were tractor trailers full of
Speaker 1: food on their way to grocery stores, so we're seeing
Speaker 1: shortfalls there. You know, it impacts getting food from ports,
Speaker 1: so imported food getting from ports to you know, intermotal
Speaker 1: so onto train containers, and then from there into the
Speaker 1: trucking world. Most food gets to grocery stores via truck,
Speaker 1: so if you have enormous impediments along major thoroughfares, like
Speaker 1: that's gonna slow some things down. You may mention also
Speaker 1: school delays and closing and going back to remote learning
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases. You know, this also has
Speaker 1: an effect on families and the way they buy food.
Speaker 1: So you have kids at home more often that you know,
Speaker 1: they're gonna stock up on more things, so leaving a
Speaker 1: little bit of less inventory for other people. That's another
Speaker 1: thing that the schools keep impacting daily life in a
Speaker 1: bunch of different ways. Yeah, so by the end of
Speaker 1: last week, there were more than fifty schools temporarily pushing off,
Speaker 1: you know, reconvening in person, and obviously every single parent
Speaker 1: then has to provide those meals for those kids. So
Speaker 1: that's a pivot. I mean, my guess is that a
Speaker 1: lot of parts of the country, those lunchables and those
Speaker 1: kinds of things are sold out because all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: parents had to provide breakfast, lunch, dinner for for kids
Speaker 1: that they didn't anticipate. So yes, that's another impediment. And
Speaker 1: and some of those workers now have kids at home
Speaker 1: and are and you know, you can't find childcare on
Speaker 1: the fly, so they may be calling in sick to
Speaker 1: work because of that. Supply chain issues continue to be
Speaker 1: a huge thing, but now we're feeling the effects of
Speaker 1: supply supply chain issues from other countries and things that
Speaker 1: we import from them. Sure, so you know, we've talked
Speaker 1: a lot in the past few months about shipping container
Speaker 1: backup in California and Louisiana. But some of this now
Speaker 1: in terms of imported food, and that can be finished
Speaker 1: food or ingredients that go into other foods. A lot
Speaker 1: of that now is impacted by manufacturing plants closing because
Speaker 1: of omicron surges in other places. So if China has
Speaker 1: a you know, no COVID hard and fast rule right now,
Speaker 1: that is really impacting manufacturing. I mean the UK, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of disruption there, so some products may be
Speaker 1: delayed for a significant amount of time because of those
Speaker 1: manufacturing closures. And finally, I mean one of the other
Speaker 1: big reasons why you're seeing a lot more shells empty
Speaker 1: at the grocery store is pretty simple. More people are
Speaker 1: just eating at home, especially coming off of the holidays,
Speaker 1: when people generally eat at home more. You know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about people not maybe being a little hesitant to
Speaker 1: go out just so they don't want to catch anything.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people are just hitting the
Speaker 1: grocery stores even more because they're eating at home. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I looked at open table data and Yelp data and
Speaker 1: those kinds of things mid December, and there was a
Speaker 1: significant dip in consumer you know, attendance and reservations, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Restaurants and there's just a growing consumer hesitancy about dining in.
Speaker 1: And you know, some parts of the country you can
Speaker 1: still get an outdoor table, but that's not a lot
Speaker 1: of places, right, I mean, just the weather doesn't accommodate that.
Speaker 1: So you saw this shift back towards dining at home.
Speaker 1: And then another thing to consider is in the month
Speaker 1: of December, obviously it's holidays, but for all of us
Speaker 1: who once again we're deciding Okay, I can't go to
Speaker 1: a Broadway show. I'm not taking that trip. It's imprudent
Speaker 1: to hop on a plane. People may be rewarding themselves,
Speaker 1: so treating themselves with a splurge, so you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: that's okay, kids, we're having lobster tonight or we're doing
Speaker 1: something like that. So we saw an eight percent increase
Speaker 1: in grocery store sales in December relative to last year.
Speaker 1: So some of the shortfalls that we're seeing was kind
Speaker 1: of exuberant spending in the month of December, and the
Speaker 1: thought is that a lot of this is going to
Speaker 1: be continuing for some months to come. Inflation is really
Speaker 1: at a high point right now, so just you know,
Speaker 1: prepare and be ready for what's going on. Laura Riley,
Speaker 1: Business of Food reporter at The Washington Post, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for joining us. Oh thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Hi'm Oscar Ramires and this has been reopening America. Don't
Speaker 1: forget effort today's big news stories. You can check me
Speaker 1: out on the Daily Dive podcast every mondy to Friday,
Speaker 1: So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast.