RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) – Over the last few weeks, shoppers may have noticed empty shelves or grocery stores limiting how much of an item they can buy.
As customers shopped Tuesday at a Food Lion in Richmond, a sign was posted near the meat department, limiting customers to just two poultry items due to production challenges with its supplier.
It’s an inconvenience, one shopper says, forced her to travel across town to the Farm Fresh on East Main Street.
“Actually, it was a pretty good experience here at the Farm Fresh because, unlike most stores, they’re pretty well stocked on meats and everything,” the shopper said. “Your major stores like Food Lion, Walmart, they’re either out, or they are really low.”
NBC12 reached out to Food Lion on the issue and have yet to hear back, but the chain is certainly not alone.
Both Kroger and Publix say the food supply chain is under stress right now.
Omicron is leading to widespread sickouts by distribution workers, and a shortage of truck drivers isn’t helping.
A spokesperson for Publix provided a statement on the issue, saying:
“It kind of hits one category at a time, but overall, we’ve been happy with how our warehouse has been doing,” Raphael Strumlauf, the owner of Farm Fresh, said. “We’re lucky that they’re located just over in Mechanicsville – about 15 minutes from here – and they’ve been doing a really good job of keeping us stocked.”
Strumlauf says they’ve been fortunate to keep their shelves stocked by working with their supplier. He says when items do fly off the shelf, it’s at random, and no one specific item is continuously out of stock.
“I never thought I would go into the store and see a day that there is a lack of meat, a lack of bread, a lack of milk, the essentials that people usually buy, cereal, yeah I’m kind of surprised by it all,” the shopper said.
A spokesperson for Kroger says while they are aware some items may be out of stock, employees are working around the clock.
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