4 ways grocery stores can hide supply chain-related shortages and use cardboard to cut food

• Supply chain issues mean that many grocery stores are struggling to maintain inventories of key items.
• Rather than leaving the shelves empty, some people are looking for creative ways to make up for the shortage.
• This includes using cardboard cutouts to cover blank or scattered inventory items.
• For more stories, please visit www.BusinessInsider.co.za.

Grocery stores are becoming more and more creative in how to cover up supply chain-related product shortages to make the shelves look well-stocked.

Some of these strategies include using cardboard photo crops of key items to cover exposed shelves or changing store layouts to fill in the gaps.

U.S. and European stores are in a nightmare situation trying to ensure enough inventory to keep up with demand because Global supply chain struggle. Lack of raw materials and labor Lead to long-term delays, shortages and rising costs.As some stores have Start stocking Situation It will only get worse.

Some larger chains, including Kroger, are securing additional warehouse space to store additional inventory.The others are Reduce discount To alleviate consumer demand.

Here are some sneaky ways they cover up the blanks in the store:

Move the product to an unlikely place

This photo was taken by shoppers in September.

Stewart Turner

British shopper Stuart Turner discovered that salad cream (a condiment similar to mayonnaise) or HP sauce (a brown sauce) that did not require refrigeration was transferred to the refrigerator to fill his local company’s Vacancy. Op shop.

A Co-Op spokesperson told Insider when commenting on the photo: “Stores always try to make sure they look as attractive as possible, and the managers came up with creative ways to make sure the shelves are full.”

Paper cut photos of cardboard dummies or products

In the Tesco store in the UK, empty baskets were replaced by pictures of asparagus. This photo was taken in August.

Andre

Another strategy used by grocery stores is to put photos of lost items in blank spaces. This photo was taken at a Tesco store in August and shows cardboard of vegetables that were not in stock at the time.

A Tesco spokesperson told Insider that its cardboard cutouts are used for larger stores when there is additional space and is not related to recent supply chain challenges.

Signs or empty product display boxes used to fill blank spaces

Courtesy sign of a Sainsbury store in the UK.

Matthew Howwood/Getty Images

Instead of leaving the shelves empty, some stores use polite signs to inform shoppers of shortages.A grocery store owner recently told Wall Street Journal He is using display boxes to fill in the gaps.

Matt Santarpio, owner of the Walnut Food Market in Newton, Massachusetts, told the Wall Street Journal: “For certain things, I’m worried that people will come in and see that it’s not here and eventually won’t come back.” Putting the boxes outside shows that I am trying to get them in, not give them up.”

A row of deep shelves

A row of deep shelves in a Tesco store in southeast London on Tuesday.

Insider/Mary Hanbury

Some stores make good use of inventory items and distribute them on shelves by keeping them one row deep. According to the Wall Street Journal, the official term is: “face.”

Santapio told the Wall Street Journal that some items that used to have only one place on the shelf are now scattered in two or three places.

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