Empty Shelves? Here’s What’s Missing Right Now at Southwest Michigan Grocery Stores

In the last few weeks, and in some cases the last two years, we have seen and heard a lot of stories about people struggling to find certain items when they make a shopping trip to grocery stores locally and across the state of Michigan.

There are a lot of contributing factors to this. Obviously, the pandemic continues to play a role in disrupting a lot of areas of our lives. In other cases, reasons that stem from the pandemic, such as worker shortages due to illness or "The Great Resignation", shortages of drivers causing shipping delays, or shortages of products themselves that are filtering all the way down to the store shelves.

Oddly enough, there are some things that are still easy to find still such as eggs, most dairy products, and frozen pizzas among other things. Thankfully, toilet paper doesn't seem to be hard to find right now unlike in March of 2020. But there are some items that seem to have a common theme such as pet-related products (especially for cats), saltine crackers, and chicken among others.

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So we were curious about which items are becoming the hardest to find and put the question out on social media Wednesday. We were amazed by the number of responses that came in, and especially some of the items that seem to be recurring in the current shortages at stores. Some people also posted about things they are not having trouble finding and other options for people searching such as different products, different stores, etc. Others had a little sarcasm.

Here are some responses:

The chicken fridge was empty at Meijer in Battle Creek on Monday. - Ana

The produce dept. is well-stocked at any store I visit. It's mostly the convenience items that are out of stock. I get it though, families are busy and don't get much time to prepare meals. - Matt

Kitty food, the good kind! - Marlene

Distilled water, meat, bread, syrup to name a few. (Especially) cat food.  And the prices have gone up tremendously. Sour cream was 99 cents now $1.75 - Cindy

Frozen hash browns, frozen vegetables - Judy

Chicken, yogurt, pineapple juice, dog food. All missing on Monday at my local Meijer. - Karen

Saltine crackers (in any brand) - Debbie

Pancake sausage sticks, color marshmallows - Alice

Saltine Crackers and soup - Duane

Meat!! - Courtney

Arm and Hammer toothpaste. There was none - of any kind. The shelves were almost completely bare. - Rebecca

Pails of cat litter. Who keeps buying up all the dang litter?! - Sonja

Frozen hash browns - Heather

Chicken and cat food - Jada

Cat food - Ruth

Chicken - Janie

Distilled water for my CPAP, so I've decided to buy a distiller and make my own. - Kris

Depends on the store. At Dollar General, you can't find the shelves because the aisles are packed with carts full of totes with products to be unpacked and shelved - Glenn

Boston Market Meals, Saltines, Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches - Kathy

Common sense - Nick

Nothing - Tanja

Low prices - Cathy

Common sense - Ken

Walmart is faring better than Meijer in BC. Oreida products have been missing for a long time off and on, but especially now, mainly hashbrowns. - Andrew

Good looking women - Bob

None!!! - Janet

Allll of it - Jenn

People with masks. - Bryan

Cat food. Fancy feast gravy. - Sherry

Where to begin…. go to Meijer on Wednesdays because that seems to be when all the vendors actually stock the shelves! - Rachel

Unbleached white flour. Canned cat food - Carl

I went to Walmart Saturday night and they were out of so many things one whole meat display was completely empty and the other was almost empty. Not sure if it’s because it was after 7pm or what - Kara

Oh my goodness !!! Unsalted saltine crackers ! And a green v-8 juice !!! Haven’t been able to get those two items at meijers or Walmart for months !!
But it’s weird u can go to family fare and they have had them ??? -  Dawn

Cat food!! - Bonnie Jo

Definitely cat food. And kitty litter a lot of times. Not as much variety of crackers - Kristine

bottled distilled water - Brenda

Peak Sweet Tea in individual bottles - Camilla 

Chicken.. canned soup, kleenex - Shannon

Ice Mountain water.
Cat food
Meat
So much more - Brandi

Pancake mix - Sherria

Saltines, tater tots, grape juice, chicken in a biskit - Jenny

Tyson bagged chicken. - Teresa

Soda Crackers - Tammy

Meijer was out of juice boxes, frozen chicken nuggets, mandarin oranges, cook and serve chocolate pudding. - Nikki

The pellets and pads for my kitty's box. - Jenn