Wendy's taking burgers off the menu?

[Clipper]

I just heard on the news that Wendy's is taking hamburgers off the menu in several locations due to the meat shortage. Good luck with that decision. Maybe they can just change the signage to Chick-fil-a.

I find it hard to even envision Wendy's without their "never frozen" beef patties on the menu. That little old lady will most likely be back shouting "where's the beef."

I had to go to food city this morning for milk and eggs. I was there early and there was plenty of ground beef available. How long it will last when the store gets busy later in the morning remains to be seen. As usual there was a young woman with 2 kids about 4 or 5 years old in the store with no masks and kids milling about touching things. I guess if you have small children and no one to watch them while you shop, it is necessary to bring them with you. At least put masks on them for their own protection as well as mine. I am still most comfortable getting up early and being at the store when it opens. I only encountered three or four other shoppers, and there is only two registers open, sanitizing the counters and debit card machine after each customer. They have a man in the entrance area sanitizing the carts as well as having the dispenser of sanitizing wipes available. Heck, even when the pandemic wanes and things get back to relative normalcy I may still do my shopping at 7 am. I love buzzing in, buzzing around getting what I need, and buzzing back out. I was gone from the house for less than a half hour this morning. My truck runs for 15 minutes if I start it with the remote. I started the truck when I got out and when I returned to the truck with my shopping complete, the truck was still running.

How bad is the meat shortage impacting stores in CNY? It seems to be having only a minimal impact on availability so far, with limits on some items preventing any hoarding or large quantity purchases.

[Ralph]

   It's been strange at Walmart.  Most of the beef and chicken is gone by the time I get in around 2pm, usually no chicken at all by the time I go to lunch at 6, except for some bagged frozen stuff, thighs, legs, wings, etc.  We have been getting meats from different suppliers in, stuff I have never seen there before, but not much.    When I went yesterday I grabbed a couple of those little pork roasts and a package of pork steaks along with a few packages of Dino's medium Italian sausage, but there wasn't much of anything else fresh there.  You know what Walmart's fresh meat is like anyway.   Hams are almost like gold now.
   Frozen vegetables are either there or totally gone.  They ran out Saturday and there was still nothing much at all there when I shopped yesterday.
   Dairy products are spotty but I believe that is due to a deficit in Walmart's food suppliers.  Half & Half hasn't been there in a week or so, margarine is nonexistent as is butter.  I had to buy a pound of Breakstone's butter for $3.29 just so I had butter for us.   No limiting yet for meat or dairy there, they just put it out and sell it till it's gone.
   We haven't had any yeast there in over two weeks!  Flour goes as soon as it hits the shelf with sugar following close behind.
Pasta comes and goes quick and for some reason neither store had any Alfredo sauce.   Soup is a big seller too.
   I bought a 2.53 quart bottle of Great Value bleach yesterday for $2.49.   Disinfectant products and wipes, when we get them, are gone in a heartbeat, same thing with hand sanitizer.

   Price Chopper on the other hand has had half & half, butter, margarine, all without fail.  They are limiting meat purchases to one or two packages per household and didn't have much when i got there about 4:30.   Hams there are hard to find as well.

I didn't hang around there too long as I just wanted to get out and get home.  I spent more time in line at Walmart than I did shopping and only stopped at PC for 1/2 & 1/2.

   It really stinks for us working there as now the last time we have to shop for ourselves is during our last 15 minute break at 9pm, then they shut the registers shut down.   Can't shop for the week in 10 minutes, so out we go on our days off.

   The mask debacle is in full effect and you can't come in without one on.  However, once you're inside there isn't much there keeping you from taking it off.  We are supposed to remind customers to wear them and if there are problems there are plenty of managers around to remind them they have to wear them or leave.   So far so good, but it's hard for them to keep up and I had to dodge this woman and her three terrible kids yesterday with their masks down around their necks and running all over the place. 

   When we are working we are required to wear them on the floor all the time.  Once we close I usually take mine off for a while as I am working my freight in my own aisles by myself with no one else around.  They provide employees with masks and we have sanitizing stations set up in the back portions of the store with wipes and spray disinfectant/virucide.  And you can bet your ass I spray down my carts before I touch the damn things!  I also have sanitizer I carry on my cart and regularly use it on the gloves I wear to try and keep them as clean as I can.

   It's a fun time no matter if you are shopping there or working.

[Clipper]

I can't say that there IS no meat shortage or shortage of other items here, but it seems to be striking the Northeast a bit harder. Only in the first 2 or 3 weeks when everyone was hoarding was there a shortage of items such as flour, yeast, and sugar. Pasta flew off the shelves for a couple of weeks, but things seem to have settled here. I see empty spots on the toilet paper and paper towel shelves where some brands are not in stock, but the shelves have not been totally empty lately. You just have to pay the price for the premium brands. I shop mainly at Food City lately as Kroger's does experience periodic shortages of stock on the shelves. I was there the other day to buy the store brand rye bread that I always buy there and it was the first time I have found it in stock in a month. They still seem to have a problem keeping poultry and pork and the selection is limited.

Food City seems to always have a decent selection of meats and poultry when I go early, but it may sell out. There was a shortage of the store's brand of milk for a week or so, but they had substituted milk from a different vendor. I can't speak to availability of products later in the day but I have not heard many complaints. They HAVE put limits on how many packages of specific meats you can buy, and milk had a two gallon limit but it has been lifted.

The local Walmarts don't seem to be as bad off as they seem to be in your area. I don't shop there unless forced to but I have not heard of any major shortages there in the last week or two other than a limited selection of some meats and poultry, and limits on how much can be purchased. I have seen photos on tv of the people coming and going and they have restricted entrance and exit lanes and procedures with someone counting people coming and going from what I hear. I have only been there once since this mess started and nobody was observing the one way aisles and few were wearing masks. The place gave me the creeps. I couldn't wait to get out of there.

[Clipper]

I wonder why the supply chain seems to be better here than in the Northeast. Logistics can be complicated and the flow of goods depends on availability of trucks to move it as well as brokers and dispatchers that control the movement of the trucks. Perishables are a priority and usually the transportation is arranged and confirmed before the product is even loaded. It really surprises me that Walmart of all places with their massive distribution and purchasing system is having a problem obtaining things.

[Ralph]

  Yeah, I would have thought Walmart of all places would be the last to have distribution problems, but honestly, their supply chain logistics isn't the best I have seen to begin with.   I think they go with high volume distributors and they're just overwhelmed at the moment. Golub/PC does more with local folks and I think that may be why they are better stocked with some items.   I think a lot of folks are feeding off of the terror script in NYC, and it's just not that bad up here.  Yet anyways.

[Clipper]

I did notice this morning that the meat price increases are becoming more common. The little marinated pork tenderloins that I usually buy at Aldi's for about $5 weren't available the last time I was there so when I saw them at Food City this morning I bought a couple. They were $8.50.

[BHU]

The wife went to Hapanowiz to pick up some meat to avoid the crowds at PC or Chanatry's. We won't buy meat from WalMart. For about $170.00 she bought some chicken breast, a roaster, plenty of ground beef, a beef roast & some pork spare ribs. Oh & a couple of N.Y. strip steaks. So the freezer is well stocked for a while along with what was in there from before. According to her the meat case was well stocked.

[Clipper]

I am still buying small quantities of meats for immediate day to day use. We have the freezer well stocked and filled for now. We are waiting to see how severe the shortages become and how high the prices go before we really dive into the frozen reserves.

We probably have enough meat to last us a couple of months if necessary. Our freezer is stuffed to the door. To buy and freeze any more would just be taking a chance on it losing it's quality over time and would border on hoarding. I would have to buy another freezer. We have a large freezer drawer in the bottom of our refrigerator that is also filled. I really wish we had the sources that you have in Utica. We would have loved to be able to have filled the freezer with fresh meats from Chanatry's, Pulaski meat market, and Meelan's in Clark Mills. We would think we had died and went to heaven if we could cook up a big ring of Pulaski's kielbasa.

It's going it to be a tough summer for availability of meat and poultry. Sadly it is not the products that are short. It is the ability to process them and get them to market, along with panic buying that is causing the shortages on store shelves.

I saw a note on a friend's FB page talking about a milk give away today at the Boscov's parking lot in Sangertown mall. They are going to be giving away 4000 gallons of milk with a limit of 2 gallons per family. Anyone is able to get it. CB, it's close to you so you could grab a couple of gallons for the grandkids since they are staying with you a lot at the present time. I think it starts at 2 pm. Terri DiNitto ( our "country gal") put it up on her page. It is helping farmers avoid dumping milk.

[clarencebunsen]

I will go.

[Clipper]

May 6, 2020 10:45:33 GMT -5 clarencebunsen said:

I will go.

Let me know how long the line was. 4000 gallons with a limit of 2 gallons per car the potential would be for 2000 cars. That would be one hell of a line if they all show up at 2pm, haha.