Why are there empty shelves at the local grocery store, while we see reports of food being dumped or crops being plowed?
See full answerIn some cases the inventory of certain foods at your grocery store might be temporarily low before stores can restock. Based on our ongoing communication with industry, we understand this is largely an issue of unprecedented demand from the retail sector – not a lack of capacity to produce, process and deliver.Food production and manufacturing are widely dispersed throughout the United States, however; there is a significant shift in where consumers are buying food, because of the pandemic. While food use in large-scale establishments, such as hotels, restaurants, sports arenas/stadiums and universities suddenly declined, the demand for food at grocery stores increased. FDA has issued temporary guidance to provide flexibility in packaging and labeling requirements to support food supply chains and get foods to the consumer retail marketplace.
How have grocery stores changed over the years?
From the disappearance of green stamps to the rise of online ordering, here’s how our local supermarkets have changed over the past several decades. In the ’60s and early ’70s, most grocery stores were a compact 10,000 to 15,000 square feet; today, they average 45,000 square feet, according to Grocery Dive.
What happened to grocery stores in the ’70s?
In the ’70s and ’80s, chances are you shopped at a local or regional grocery chain, but the past couple of decades have been marked by industry consolidation. For instance, by 2009, the nation’s top four food sellers sold more than half of its groceries, double the proportion that they sold a decade prior.
When did grocery stores start selling organic food?
While organic farming took off in the 1970s, grocery stores were slow to catch on, as were federal regulators: Final rules on what actually constituted “organic” food weren’t even in place until 2002. But the rest is history, with sales of organics climbing from $8.6 billion that year to more than $49 billion in 2017.
How do grocery stores know what you buy?
In the ’70s, even the most loyal shopper could make their purchases with some degree of anonymity, but today’s grocery stores have made tracking what you buy into an art form. The loyalty cards that allow access to sale prices and other special offers also mean stores get detailed data on what we buy and how often.