Fully stocked grocery store shelves remain hit or miss as supply chain disruptions continue, labor shortages are ongoing and COVID-19 is sickening workers. (MLive file photo)J. Scott Park | MLive.com

At some grocery stores, bare shelves are continuing into 2022.

It brings back memories of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when toilet paper shelves were picked clean and hand sanitizer was hard to find. But Jennifer Rook, vice president of the Michigan Retailers Association, says this has been an ongoing issue for the past two years.

“It’s more of the same,” she said.

Retailers are caught in a web of issues, including supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and high COVID-19 cases. From cereal to soup to December’s cream cheese demand, fully stocked shelves can be hit or miss at stores.

This is an “industrywide challenge,” said a written response from Tony Sarsam, CEO of SpartanNash, a grocery retailer with 80 Michigan stores.

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Meanwhile, Michigan-based grocery giant Meijer has been replying to customers reporting empty shelves on social media saying, “our inventory fluctuates.” And national retailer Aldi apologized for “shipping delays” on some products.

“You’re taking one step forward, thinking things are getting better, and then you’re taking two steps back,” Rook said.

Here are some of the reasons behind current grocery store shortages:

Global supply chains, strained since the beginning of the pandemic, continue to create a ripple effect on Michigan consumers.

“The supply chain is not something you can flip a switch and fix,” Rook said. “You’re dealing with raw materials, processing plants, production and all of it just takes time. It’s a big ship with a small rudder.”

John Taylor, professor of global supply chain management at Wayne State University, says both supply and changing consumer demand are snarling supply chains.

“The demand signal is not clear,” he said. “There’s inadequate communication and information flowing through the supply chain to really understand what the actual demand is.”

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Severe weather can also disrupt distribution with trucks responsible for transporting about 72% of freight in the United States. Winter storms, like the ones that recently shut down I-80 in northern California and I-95 in Virginia, can cause additional delivery delays.

Weather events commonly impact distribution, Sarsam said, but coupled with supply chain issues it makes delays last even longer.

“What would have been a shortage for a day may now be three days, but the items will return to the shelves as we continue operations,” he said.

Interwoven with the supply chain, Sarsam said labor shortages are “dramatically impacting” every step from production to distribution to retail.

“It really does come down to labor,” Rook said. “If there’s nobody stocking the trucks, the items don’t get to the store. Dealing with a lot less people, a smaller labor pool, to get things to the store, the consumers are not going to see as many things stocked on the shelves.”

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Most independent retailers are struggling with staffing, according to a survey from the National Grocers Association, as some are operating with 50% of their normal workforce.

Ken Courts, the owner of two Ken’s Fruit Market stores in the Grand Rapids area, said labor has been more of an issue than keeping shelves stocked.

“If we put a sign out today saying ‘hiring,’ which we do have, you won’t see anybody coming in,” he said.

Compounding the labor issues, high rates of COVID-19 cases spurred by the highly transmissible omicron variant are crippling an already depleted workforce.

At SpartanNash, COVID-19 is impacting about 1% of its workforce—a fraction of the 19,000 employees but a jump from the one-third of a percent recorded in recent months.

Taylor says COVID-19 needs to be brought under control “before we see stability again.”

In Michigan, cases of COVID-19 skyrocketed in recent weeks with the most recent data showing a seven-day average of 15,734 daily cases and positivity rate of 34%.

“When you have people who are still getting sick, you’re going to still have these issues,” Rook said.

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