Publix and Winn-Dixie recently announced that their stores were placing limits on several products in order to preserve inventory as a spike in demand ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday is compounded by ongoing supply chain issues.
According to reporting from the Miami NBC affiliate, Florida-based grocery chain Publix is limiting customers to a two-per-customer limit on a number of Thanksgiving staples including canned cranberry sauce, jarred gravy, and canned pie filling.
Y'all really might wanna hurry and get all your #Thanksgiving necessities and finery ASAP!!!https://t.co/w5IgB8vP8G
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In addition, canola and vegetable oil, cream cheese, bacon, and rolled breakfast sausage will also be subject to the per-customer limit. And harkening back to the earlier days of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, paper napkins, disposable tableware, and toilet paper are also being rationed.
The list of limited items also includes refrigerated snacks, sports drinks, aseptic-type juices, canned cat food, and refrigerated pet foods.
Publix — which has more than 1,200 locations across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas — said the limits are for "all stores" in its operating area and that "there is not a set time determined for these limits, and the list can change to include more items or remove items."
Grocery chain Winn-Dixie — which operates around 500 stores in the southeast — has also been forced to limit its sales to one turkey per customer in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
The official rationing comes as many stores across the country find themselves receiving a smaller and smaller percentage of what they order from distributors and producers amid the supply chain crisis that's left cargo ships piled up in floating parking lots off the U.S. coast and shipping containers filling ports past capacity.