Why Grocery Store Shelves Are Bare. Again.

Moneybox Supply chains are made of people. By Aaron Mak Jan 10, 20223:06 PM It’s starting to feel like the beginning of the pandemic again, in more ways than one. The insanely infectious omicron variant is renewing old debates about school closures. Lines for tests are stretching for blocks. The Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert, the NBA’s first public COVID-19 case in 2020, just tested positive last week. And, yet again, supermarket shelves in a lot of places are looking increasingly barren. Grocery stores and food supply chains have been stretching themselves throughout the pandemic to keep products in stock, but the onset of omicron is now upending operations across the board. In the grocery stores themselves, outbreaks among staff are exacerbating already-existing labor shortages stemming from the Great Resignation. Bloomberg reports that cases have tripled among the staff of SpartanNash, a major grocery chain and supplier in the Midwest, over the last few weeks, with about 1 percent of its...