I'm already seeing holes and thin product depth all over the place. Not totally empty shelves, yet, but not fully stocked either. I'm stocked for a month at least of regular food, and have enough freeze dried rations and MREs for about 2 months as well.
Dumb ass don't-want-no-unvaxxed-help WA DOT couldn't keep Deception Pass open last month when a big snow storm hit, so it was closed for 4 days. I90 from the east and I-5 up from Portland are the two major road routes into Seattle, with US2 over Stevens pass being an alternate route.
Check the physical locations of the shelves at some point. Of the few things I've noticed some superstores doing to hide their dwindling stock this has included:
Filling gaps with advertisement signs
Putting confectionary on aisle ends and side stacks that would normally be completely different product types
Physically moving aisles and removing others so there are fewer spots to be empty. This particular example was related to an entire clothes aisle just dissappearing and those around it moving in slightly to take the space, most noticeable from the outer most aisle where the distance to the boundary wall now meant more than two trolleys could pass each other
Completely redesigning shelve layouts and chilled/fridge unit placement. An Aldi I visited some point last did this with one of its standalone fridge units that used to be a layout of two standing fridge units back to back near the wall mounted units. One day the units not facing the wall units just vanished and never came back
One other thing I've seen is stores using shorter shelves. Forget which store it was, but I remember a particular shelf always being taller than me, then one day it wasn't.
They straight up remove the top level shelf in one aisle. Just took the whole damn thing down one notch and hoped no one noticed. And this is in a metropolitan area that's pretty thoroughly insulated against the economic turbulence the rest of the country experiences, so I can only imagine how bad shit is in normal Podunk USA.
I'm already seeing holes and thin product depth all over the place. Not totally empty shelves, yet, but not fully stocked either. I'm stocked for a month at least of regular food, and have enough freeze dried rations and MREs for about 2 months as well.
Dumb ass don't-want-no-unvaxxed-help WA DOT couldn't keep Deception Pass open last month when a big snow storm hit, so it was closed for 4 days. I90 from the east and I-5 up from Portland are the two major road routes into Seattle, with US2 over Stevens pass being an alternate route.
Check the physical locations of the shelves at some point. Of the few things I've noticed some superstores doing to hide their dwindling stock this has included:
Filling gaps with advertisement signs
Putting confectionary on aisle ends and side stacks that would normally be completely different product types
Physically moving aisles and removing others so there are fewer spots to be empty. This particular example was related to an entire clothes aisle just dissappearing and those around it moving in slightly to take the space, most noticeable from the outer most aisle where the distance to the boundary wall now meant more than two trolleys could pass each other
Completely redesigning shelve layouts and chilled/fridge unit placement. An Aldi I visited some point last did this with one of its standalone fridge units that used to be a layout of two standing fridge units back to back near the wall mounted units. One day the units not facing the wall units just vanished and never came back
One other thing I've seen is stores using shorter shelves. Forget which store it was, but I remember a particular shelf always being taller than me, then one day it wasn't.
They straight up remove the top level shelf in one aisle. Just took the whole damn thing down one notch and hoped no one noticed. And this is in a metropolitan area that's pretty thoroughly insulated against the economic turbulence the rest of the country experiences, so I can only imagine how bad shit is in normal Podunk USA.