, Columnist
The Return of Empty Shelves and Panic Buying
Supply chain issues are leaving supermarket shelves empty. Shoppers might yet make things worse.
Where is everything?
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Walk around a supermarket in the U.S. or Europe and you will see some empty shelves once more. This isn’t due to people panic-buying toilet paper, as they did early on in the pandemic; rather it’s because supply chains are clogged at almost every stage between Asian factories and grocery stock rooms.
But rising prices and patchy availability mean it’s only a matter of time before shoppers start purchasing in bulk again — this time to avoid future sticker shock.