Major grocery retailers have shortened their business hours as the high demand for essential products leaves shelves empty.
With Memphis checkout lines stretching to the back of grocery stores, Fox13’s Amicia Ramsey said shortage of items has become the new normal.
Tennessee has witnessed several dozen coronavirus cases, and retailers like Kroger have activated preparedness plans to limit the number of essential items each shopper can purchase.Click here to follow and like The Mighty 990 on Facebook!
“We took the precautionary step on March 2 to limit the number of cold, flu and sanitary products per order,” Kroger told local news reporters.
“It’s empty,” said one customer at the Union Ave. location. “Lines are long. The lines are kind of crowded. It is mayhem. The parking lots are nuts.”
WREG reports that supply trucks are lining up outside a Kroger Distribution Center waiting to head out to shopping locations.Despite stores struggling to restock shelves, Republican Congressman David Kustoff believes the U.S. economy overall will survive.
“The main thing is just to practice proper hygiene” and social distancing, Kustoff told WMC news. “There’s going to be enough food on the shelves.”
Downtown, small business owner Jim Losapio transformed his Spindini restaurant into a grocery store to avoid take-out and delivery-only mandates, Fox13 reports.“What we’ve seen over the last two weeks when we’ve gone into grocery stores, there’s been supply issues, well a demand issue – they can’t keep up,” Losapio told the television station. “The holes that I saw in the store at Kroger, I could access those foods.”
