What is with the bare grocery shelves lately? (Austin, Jollyville: transplants, sale)

[Dontshootme]

Over the past 4 months I've noticed all of the grocery stores continually have bare space on their shelves as they run out of the products. Is this because Austin is growing so fast that the stores can't handle it or is there something else going on in the background? Example: I visited a very large HEB and was looking for a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. The 3 areas on their shelf for 3 brands ? Completely out! Why would there be a run on hydrogen peroxide? Every aisle had empty pockets - quite a few for such a large store.
But I've found this to be the case in the smaller HEB's and Randall's too. Are folks stock piling food and pharmacy type items? Just seems a bit strange to me - who has lived here over 30 years.

[mark311]

I haven't noticed that at most of the HEB's during non-weekends that I frequent. However, I've stopped going to the grocery store on Sunday afternoons. The shelves are just cleaned out from the weekend especially the bread aisle along with the tortillas on Sunday afternoon.

The only HEB that I've really seen what you're talking about was the one on Braker/Jollyville that just seemed to be cleaned out all the time. That was about six years ago though when I lived right by it. The Randall's across the street from it never had that issue.

[Trainwreck20]

The HEB near our house has issues keeping items on the shelves during 'rush' hours, although they also have people out stocking at the same time....so either you have bare shelves or you have stock pallets in some aisles during a busy time. But, yes, I think that stores have gotten more efficient at moving people in and out, but haven't really increased shelf space (possibly even decreasing it a bit), so you have a higher product throughput per shelf per period of time.....

In any case, I think it is more of the grocery store model than the number of people. I would guess that a huge majority of people now pay with credit or debit, and with credit cards, you only swipe and tap and you are done - no signature even for under $35 or something like that.

[OpenD]

Coming into this time of year stores let their general inventory run low to create room for seasonal inventory... back to school, football season, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years.

You'll also see a lot of inventory being moved around to different locations in the store for the same reason.

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

People are stocking up for the end of the world. Or not...

NASA - 2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?


But, I have to say I find the sale products NOT on the shelves at my particular HEB and that makes me very unhappy. That, and I heard from another customer standing in line they got rid of the good manager. That really makes me unhappy.

Ok, it's really all the people from California, Michigan, Ohio, South Dakota, or any other state, that are wiping the shelves clean. It's those dog-gone transplants!!

[10scoachrick]

The HEB at Parmer/1431 has been undergoing a complete remodel/expansion for months . "We're" lucky to have shelves in some of the aisles!

[BentBow]

Best time to go shopping @ HEB, is Tuesday morning, before 10:00.

[Idlewile]

I have noticed this in the last two months... HEB Plus always seems out of peanut butter (they only have the giant jars left), out of certain types of yogurt and seriously low or out of common dry cereals. Pretty irritating now that it's happened on three different trips, in the middle of the week.

[Trainwreck20]

HEB Plus always seems out of peanut butter (they only have the giant jars left), out of certain types of yogurt

Peanut butter is actually still in a bit of a short supply situation nation-wide, largely due to the drought. A huge number of the peanuts used in PB are from Texas (No. 2 state behind Georgia), and the crop is still pretty pathetic, I think, but better than last year. GA, OTOH, is having a banner year.

Yogurt is one of those items that they can't seem to keep on the shelves. In our HEB, they are almost constantly stocking the yogurt and it is being swiped up as fast as they do......

Have not had any issues with dry cereal, tho.....

[Paulmmm]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Peanut butter is actually still in a bit of a short supply situation nation-wide, largely due to the drought. A huge number of the peanuts used in PB are from Texas (No. 2 state behind Georgia), and the crop is still pretty pathetic, I think, but better than last year. GA, OTOH, is having a banner year......

My wife told me the other day that there is a big recall on peanut butter going on right now. Some brands carried in Target, Trader Joe's, and other stores are affected. Not all brands are tainted, but I bet that also has something to do with a PB shortage in a lot of stores.