1/23/2022
As the world continues to face the COVID-19 pandemic and all of its challenges, one unfortunate consequence that continues to affect the American public is the food shortage in America. The early days of the pandemic were characterized by panic shopping and news reports showing scenes of almost completely empty grocery stores causing people to panic that they would run out of toilet paper before stores were restocked again. Things like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and frozen and canned foods were sold out from almost every store across the country. From there, supply chains got backed up, and labor shortages started hurting every industry and continue to cause issues. E-commerce boomed during this time creating a load that our postal services were not ready to handle. Eventually things opened again, and life started to resume in a new normal, but supply chain issues still remained. Today, supply chain issues are contributing to a major food shortage in the United States that is affecting millions of people.
The food shortage in America makes it so that grocery stores across the country are sold out of staple items and stocked with a random assortment of foods that have yet to sell out. These shortages are due to labor shortages, unforeseen weather changes, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These issues have made it so that people have to turn to e-commerce to get the resources they need since no brick and mortar stores have any stock. With this on-going issue and little to no resolve, could e-commerce take over grocery stores and other shops? With the only goods being readily available online, will customers be forced to buy groceries on the internet?
Food shortages affect everyone. People are going hungry because prices are getting marked up, restaurants are having to re-arrange their menus because shipments are not coming in, and homeless shelters are running low on subsidized bulk items. The food shortage issue is going to get out of hand if the labor shortage and supply chain problems don’t get solved quickly. Soon enough grocery prices will be astronomical and restaurants will have to start charging more as well.
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