Parents and grandparents are struggling to find baby formula on the empty store shelves that have come to be a symbol of the Biden administration’s ineptitude. From New York to Washington, from California to Florida, and everywhere in between, reports of the shortages are hitting the news.
Minnesota Public Radio covered how the shortage is affecting local non-profit Feeding Every Baby.
Carter Gilbertson, 24, of Arlington, Minn., drove nearly 40 minutes with a friend. He heard about the distribution event while in town and stopped by to see if there was a specific infant formula for his son that’s been hard to find on grocery shelves lately.
“Our son is kind of sensitive, so some of the stuff that’s more readily available can cause him to have rashes and stuff like that on sensitive skin,” Gilbertson said. “So it’s nice to be able to get some stuff that you know might be harder to find in the stores.”
CBS News highlighted the difficulties San Francisco parents Irene and Mario are having, finding enough food for their 10-month-old son, Marlowe. Irene can’t breastfeed, so formula is the only way the family can properly nourish their baby. “We noticed it being difficult to find maybe a couple months ago, two, three months ago,” says Irene, “and just recently, we can’t find it.”
Tiffany Manning, who lives north of Orlando, Fla., relies on baby formula to help her 10-week-old son Corbin, who was born six weeks premature, gain weight and achieve proper nutrition. Yet, “No matter where we looked, it was sold out,” says Manning.
And The Wall Street Journal recently reported on shortages in the New York City suburbs:
“The shelves are just bare,” said Derval Kenny, 65, of Rye, N.Y., who has been trying to help find Similac formula for two infant grandsons who live in Connecticut and New Jersey. “To me, there should be an uproar.”
Ms. Kenny, whose grandsons are five and six months old, said she has driven to stores across her county and into neighboring Connecticut and placed an order on Amazon last week that hasn’t yet been delivered. While she hasn’t been able to find the premixed formula bottles that her grandsons use, she has found powdered versions, she said.
How bad are the shortages? Retail data company IRI’s president of strategic analytics, Krishnakumar Davey, told WSJ that some of the largest retailers in the United States had a 20% deficit in baby formula stocking levels as of Jan. 2; anything above a 10% out-of-stock rate indicates there’s a problem. CBS also relied on IRI numbers to report that the national in-stock-rate of baby formula before the COVID-19 pandemic was 95%, but last week some of the largest retailers had an in-stock-rate as low as 75%.
Related: New Legislation Seeks to Do for the Supply Chain What Biden Administration Wouldn’t
There are multiple causes of the shortage, all of which are traceable back to short-sighted, panic-based pandemic policy. The Biden Collective, along with globalists in power the world over, rushed to shut down businesses and mandate controversial novel vaccines, then paid the people they impoverished to stay at home instead of work. Many, terrified by endless COVID-porn propaganda, became too frightened to leave home for work. The formula shortage is a direct result of these policies.
First, baby formula manufacturers are affected by the same shortages as other industries, due to both ingredient and packaging production being shut down and then short-staffed. Second, trucking and shipping have been severely affected by COVID policies, from closed-down ports to truckers blocked from crossing the U.S. border if they are unvaccinated (even though illegal aliens are admitted). Third, COVID-related changes in work habits have caused an increase in people moving about and relocating, rendering formula manufacturers’ and retailers’ typical logistical plans useless as they try to predict where to ship and stock the product.
And finally, the relentless hysterical WuFlu theatrics of our ruling class have driven many people into a state of constant anxiety. Now add to that the fear of being unable to feed one’s infant, and quite naturally, scared parents are stocking up on formula when they are able to find it. As anyone who couldn’t score a roll of toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic knows, panic-buying and hoarding contribute mightily to bare shelves.
But while being unable to find a roll of toilet paper is irritating and inconvenient, it pales in comparison to the horror of food shortages, especially for helpless infants. Biden’s brainless policies have been nothing but a disaster from the beginning of his term; now, just a year in, middle-class Americans are, for the first time in my lifetime, worrying about whether their children will go hungry. Incredible.
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