BRILLION (NBC 26) — From cough medicine, to cereal, to cat and dog food, as the supply chain crisis continues into 2022, local grocery stores don’t know what they’ll have in stock or when.
“You don’t know when they’re gonna be in, when they’re gonna be out," said John Tadych, assistant manager of Tadych's Econofoods. "I’ve gone from orders of a thousand pieces and I’m only getting 250 of those pieces.”
More products are becoming scarce due to supply chain disruptions such as congestion at ports and a shortage of truck drivers. In addition, the recent surge of the omicron variant has exacerbated the problem in recent weeks.
“Our supplier had a problem with 35 drivers being out with COVID so everything was moved back one day," Tadych said. "Which affects us because you have all your staffing in place and you’ve got to try to move everything around to the following day.”
The delay of orders means that grocery stores like Tadych’s Econofoods don’t know when items that are out-of-stock will be back in - and the list of out-of-stock items only continues to grow.
“I had 9 pages of outs and all of a sudden this week it’s 13 pages of outs,” Tadych said.
Todych says some items like over-the-counter cold and flu medicine are in especially short supply. Other items include things like frozen foods and egg noodles. Even specific flavors of certain products are hard to come by as brands like Capri Sun prioritize their best sellers.
As grocery store workers deal with the shortages, they’re asking customers for patience.
"If they have it, they send it, if they don't, they don't," Todych said. "It's the same thing that we have in the store. If we have it, you can buy it. If we don't, there's nothing that we can do."
