Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

Re:Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a cris... by coding123 on Friday January 19, 2018 @03:56PM (#16189746)

Wow, I wonder how new this system is - I've been to Whole foods in the last 3 days and it looked nothing like that picture. I wonder if these images are extreme cases that happened after 1 strange situation, and the article makes it look like a nationwide epidemic.

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Re:Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a cris... by tinfins on Friday January 19, 2018 @04:04PM (#16189819)

There are a few things that happen every New Year that combine to contribute to shortages:

- Distributors have changed delivery schedules to work around New Year's Eve and Day.

- There's a large increase in demand for produce and some other ingredients (resolutions)

- Employees at the store and regional level take a few more vacations than usual, since we aren't able to during much of the holiday season. People also tend to plan the hell out of ordering for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but relax too much by New Year's since they figure crunch time is over. This is made worse by the relatively short tenures of most store buyers, since they either move up or quit relatively quickly.

So I would say there probably was a nationwide spike in out-of-stocks spread out over a few days. But it isn't really because of OTS.

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Re:Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a cris... by Chaebixi on Friday January 19, 2018 @07:32PM (#16191235)

> So I would say there probably was a nationwide spike in out-of-stocks spread out over a few days. But it isn't really because of OTS.

Is it though? If OTS drastically decreases the backstock, wouldn't it also decrease the ability of a store to respond to these kinds of changes?

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Re:Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a cris... by tinfins on Friday January 19, 2018 @08:27PM (#16191482)

You wouldn't want backstock for produce of more than a day or two, because that's going to reduce freshness. You can't just constantly keep tons of backstock of everything year-round just in case there's a storm one week.

Also, OTS allows backstock of top selling items or in emergencies. If you can predict a big storm like what probably caused most of the problems in the article, you are allowed to stock up on product.

That's why I have a problem with the article, it's just so factually incorrect.

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Re:Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a cris... by framebit on Friday January 19, 2018 @05:04PM (#16190269)

Not to mention that winter often brings big weather events that can disrupt supply chains.

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Re:Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a cris... by opportune on Friday January 19, 2018 @04:04PM (#16189824)

It's businessinsider, so probably. It's like the ignorant and uninformed tabloid rag of "business" news

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Re:Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a cris... by euyyn on Friday January 19, 2018 @04:04PM (#16189817)

Business Insider would NEVER do such a thing!

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Re:Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a cris... by throwaway5752 on Friday January 19, 2018 @04:37PM (#16190084)

I shop at two near where I live almost weekly, and have only seen shelves like that during restocking, if ever.

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