Groceries have been incredibly hard to get throughout the pandemic. Now, ahead of what could be a potentially chaotic holiday season with society going back to normal, people across the country can’t get enough food from the store. At this point in time, the main question is if holiday feasts will be able to go on with such supply shortages.

The reason why there isn’t any food on the shelves isn’t that there is no food. In fact, there is plenty of food; it just isn’t able to be delivered. Processing and delivery take a lot of work, but because of labor shortages, there are hardly any people that are able to do the job. If nobody is doing the processing or delivery, various items such as dry goods won’t be able to make it to the store, which then leads to empty shelves.

Holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas are known for huge feasts. If the supply chain doesn’t get any better, then these holidays and their meals could be largely impacted. One iUP student’s family eats an assortment of things around the holidays, such as pumpkin pie, turkey, and sweet potato casserole, but has had a tough time being able to get some items. “It is hard to find common items where I live such as pumpkin pie filling, milk, cream, and butter,” they said.

Hopefully, by the time the holidays hit, the shelves will be restocked. However, with how chaotic the past couple of years have been, it can be hard to count on that.

Sources:

Case, B., Patton, L., & Chipman, K. (2021, October 19). ‘People Are Hoarding’ Food Shortages Are The Next Supply Chain Crunch. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-19/food-shortages-crop-up-again-as-supply-chain-headaches-worsen

Funke, D. (2021, October 22). Fact Check: Shortages Due To Rising Demand, Supply Chain Disruption. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/10/22/fact-check-supply-chain-shortages-not-related-bidens-policies/8521883002/