:format(jpg):focal(1275x909:1285x899):watermark(cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ipmgroup/5IDEBLR7ERC5TMAPLOHS63MVNM.png,0,30,0)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ipmgroup/DQLENFQSHRG4DD4XLOO7SV5OK4.jpg "“No fruits, no vegetables”: Omicron empties supermarket shelves in the United States")
“It’s not as dramatic as last Sunday, but there are still a lot of empty shelves,” notes Justin Toone disappointed. The pandemic continues to disrupt supply chains and many supermarkets in the United States are facing product shortages.
“For several days in a row, there were no fruits or vegetables in this Giant (from Bethesda) but also in all the supermarkets around the corner, Trader Joe’s, Safeway,” says Mr. Toone, a regular customer, describing an apocalyptic situation.
Some spices cannot be found, laments Clara, who wishes to remain anonymous. The sixty-year-old gets annoyed: “a few days ago, it was the yeast to make the cakes that was impossible to find”.
In other stores, it is honey, eggs, milk or meat that have disappeared from the shelves.
In Washington and in the neighboring states, Maryland and Virginia, the snow has exacerbated this problem of recurring shortages since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“There are not enough truck drivers and as they are subject to strict regulations in terms of hours of work and rest, they say ‘we are going to stop’, well, they stop and we’re not supplied,” said Cooper, a Bethesda Giant employee for eight years, who wishes to remain anonymous.
When it snows, it’s even worse.
At the start of the pandemic, for fear of running out, there was a rush on some products such as toilet paper which created shortages. “This time it’s different,” Cooper said.
“The Omicron variant is so contagious that it has an almost simultaneous impact on the whole of the United States”, underlines Patrick Penfield, of the university of Syracuse.
A multitude of employees up and down the food production chain are sick or in quarantine, completely disrupting the supply chain.
“We cannot produce as much food as we need. There are not enough people to deliver the food, and even when the food is delivered to the supermarket, there is no one to unload it or put it on the shelves,” says Mr Penfield.
The phenomenon is widespread throughout the country but it is more significant in regions that are also confronted with bad weather such as in the Washington region.
Perishables
And in the case of fresh, easily perishable products, it is impossible to store them too long in advance, in anticipation of bad weather.
Hence the completely empty rays on Sunday when it had snowed overnight from Thursday to Friday.
For the professor, the shortage of food products will probably last until the end of March. “If everything returns to normal and there is no new variant,” he says cautiously.
The National Trade Federation (NGA), which represents independent players in the food retail sector, also notes that labor shortages continue “nationally to put a strain on essential industries, such as supermarkets and the food industry in general”.
In a recent survey of its 1,500 members, a number of them “reported having operated their stores at less than 50% of their normal labor capacity, for brief periods, at the height of the wave” of contamination.
And, the Federation warns consumers that we must still expect “sporadic disruptions” as has been the case for a year and a half.
In the meantime, supermarket workers are trying to find solutions to fill the void. They fill the front rows. The products available are, themselves, overcrowded on the shelves. For the least available products, they only put a few at a time to prevent the same customer from taking over the few that exist.
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