I have been monitoring food scarcity, fertilizer shortages, and the supply chain crisis.
Now, in related news, parents are struggling to find baby formula.
Parents of infants across the U.S. are taking to social media pleading for media coverage and political action while posting pictures of empty store shelves, as the country’s baby formula shortage continues to get worse.”If the [mainstream media] can talk about the toilet paper shortage ever (sic) hour, they should be talking about the baby formula shortage at least,” one new mom tweeted last week. “We ended [up] finding the Amazon brand online but not everyone is so lucky to be able to feed that. Please share. This is every store!”
This is a truly chilling development. As an older mother, I absolutely relied on baby formula to feed my son 20 years ago. I cannot imagine the fear, anxiety, and panic being experienced across the country by parents desperate to find formula, especially specialty types that their babies may need.
This caught my eye earlier in the day.
Curious, I went to the baby food section of our local market (which is close to a Marine Air Station and home to many young service families). Every single one of the baby formulas was “out of stock.”
It turns out, the supply of formula has dropped off suddenly.
At retailers across the U.S., 40% of the top-selling baby formula products were out of stock as of the week ending April 24, a new analysis from Datasembly, which tracked baby formula stock at more than 11,000 stores, shows. National out-of-stock levels jumped nine percentage points, from 31% to 40% between April 3 and April 24. That’s up sharply from 11% in November.”This is a shocking number that you don’t see for other categories,” Ben Reich, CEO of Datasembly told CBS MoneyWatch.
The strained supply has driven-up prices for what formula is available.
‘An entire month [there] was nothing… nothing online, nothing in stores nearby,’ Nicole Brown, the mother of a 5-month-old told News 4 Jacksonville in Florida.’I can get Amazon delivered to my door, but I can’t feed my son. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.’And in Virginia, Jill Bradford, a foster mom to a 5-month-old baby girl with medical needs, says she has less than two days of the special amino acid-based formula the baby needs.’We’ve called the WIC office,’ Bradford told WTVR. ‘We’ve called Thrive, which is a supply company. We’ve called every hospital system in the state. I’ve contacted personally, every Kroger, Walgreens, Walmart and CVS within the tri-cities area.’She noted she found eight cans of the formula the child needs on eBay, but it’s being sold for $800. The cans typically cost between $43 and $47.
Additionally, major chains are limiting how much formula can be bought at one time.
We’re continuing to work with our baby formula vendors to address this issue, and we regret any inconvenience this causes our customers,” a company spokesperson said.Walgreens issued a similar statement:”Due to increased demand and various supplier challenges, infant and toddler formulas are seeing constraint across the country,” the the Illinois-based company said. “Similar to other retailers, we put into effect purchase limits of three per transaction on all infant and toddler formula to help improve inventory. We continue to work diligently with our supplier partners to best meet customer demands.”Other media outlets reported that Target and Walmart were also limiting purchases. Representatives for those companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Clearly, the #BareShelvesBiden legacy continues.
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