Cream Cheese, Lumber, and Other Pandemic Shortages

If you were brave enough to venture out to a grocery store early last year, you probably couldn't believe your eyes. Displays were swept clean of tons of products we normally take for granted, from the infamous (toilet paper) to the less obvious (Grape-Nuts and Goldfish crackers). But on-and-off shortages continue to plague stores, most recently affecting bagel lovers and even an entire nation's ability to get its french fry fix. Here's a look at things that have been in especially short supply, from the beginning of the pandemic until now.

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While this shortage is East Asia-specific (rest easy, America, you can — for now — still get your fry fix), McDonald's reported that it would limit its Japanese customers to one small serving of fries from Dec. 24-30. The rationing is thanks to supply issues caused by recent floods in Canada, which is a significant transit point for potato shipments, as well as pandemic distribution issues. The news was met with the usual degree of snark on Twitter: "Oh no," wrote one user, "the end is coming ..."

Related: Why McDonald's Fries Used to Taste Better

You can thank hackers for that dry bagel as the end of the year approaches. News outlets reported that the recent shortage of cream cheese is due to a cyberattack all the way back in October against the the U.S.'s largest cheese manufacturer. The shortage even prompted one distributor, Kraft — maker of Philadelphia Cream Cheese — to offer a limited number of customers $20 in cash to spend on a store-bought cheesecake if they couldn't make the dessert at home. Strange times we live in, indeed. 

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More kids have headed back to school after a year of remote learning, and they need lunch. But Lunchables, a lunch-box staple, are hard to find on grocery shelves. According to Kraft Heinz, the product recently saw its first double-digit sales growth in years, and that sudden popularity combined with pandemic-related supply-chain problems to leave sad kids without their favorite lunch treat (not to mention sad parents who have to muster the effort to make a sandwich again). 

Related: Super Easy Back-to-School Lunches

It's been notoriously difficult to purchase a car during much of the pandemic, with prices of both new and used cars soaring. The culprit: A shortage of microchips, tiny electronic parts that number near 100 in most new cars. Chip suppliers had to shut down manufacturing early in the pandemic to protect workers, and the demand for home electronics, which also use microchips, increased as more people worked from home. The problem isn't going away anytime soon, according to analysts, who don't see supply catching up with demand until 2023. 

Related: Cars That Cost More Used Than New

Earlier this summer, Starbucks was hit by a supply chain disruption that made more than two dozen ingredients hard to find, meaning some popular summer drinks such as Peach Green Tea Lemonade and the Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher were off limits, and even oat milk was unavailable for your non-dairy latte. Hazelnut syrup, toffee nut syrup, chai tea bags, and green iced tea are some of the missing ingredients that have caused hiccups at the coffee chain.

You can't blame COVID-19 entirely for this shortage. While more people decided to use their pools last year and increased demand for chlorine, a chlorine plant in Louisiana burned down in August 2020 and isn't scheduled to resume production until 2022. Unfortunately, higher demand and reduced supply meant that prices for chlorine spiked this summer. 

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While trees haven't stopped growing, the production of lumber stalled during the pandemic — just when everyone either wanted a new house, a new deck, or had another lumber-based remodeling idea in mind. Lumber prices are starting to return to normal, but in the spring, softwood lumber, the kind used to frame houses and small buildings, saw prices spike by 112%, while plywood was up 77% and hardwood saw a 32% increase. 

Cracking open a cold one became a little more difficult in 2020, when manufacturers simply couldn't churn out aluminum cans fast enough. Pandemic demand and a prior shift away from plastic contributed to the shortages, industry officials say. Among one of the most prominent brands in short supply: Dr Pepper, which acknowledged a shortage in August. Coca-Cola even dumped entire brands, including Tab, Odwalla, Diet Coke Feisty Cherry, and Coke Life. 

Related: Where to Order Beer, Wine, and Liquor Online

Remember how hard it was to get your hands on some chicken breasts or a pound of ground beef last spring? It didn't stem from a lack of chickens, cows, or other livestock, but the rapid spread of COVID-19 inside of meat-processing plants. Lower production came as demand from home cooks skyrocketed, compounding the problem. Supply rebounded in a big way in the fall, and meat prices actually declined as demand also leveled off, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Related: 17 Places to Order Pork, Steaks, and Other Meats Online

Today, you can hardly stroll through the store without being accosted by hand-sanitizer displays, but last year, finding a bottle felt like hitting the lottery. It's no wonder: Sales skyrocketed 600% in 2020 as worried shoppers stocked up. Distilleries around the country even stepped in to start making sanitizer through spring and summer, but most stopped as the product made its way back onto shelves in more traditional forms in the fall. 

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The funny thing about being home all the time: The dishes never seem to end. If you found bare shelves where the dish soap and dishwasher detergent usually is early last year, you aren't alone. Manufacturers including Unilever and Procter & Gamble experienced a surge in demand not only because of constant dishwashing, but because some buyers even started using dish soap as an alternative to hard-to-find hand soap. 

Related: Creative Alternatives to Household Products in Short Supply

In some ways, a bean shortage and a global pandemic go hand in hand, at least in the United States. "In mainstream American culture, beans have long been associated with the end of the world and beloved by those who think they might survive it," Eater notes. In other words, COVID-19 made us all disaster preppers, so it follows that beans became a pandemic prize. We bought 200% more dried beans in 2020 than 2019, and prices of this normally cheap staple jumped more than 7%.

Related: 30 Creative Rice and Bean Dishes From Around the World

While most of the cereal aisle managed to stay stocked decently during the pandemic, there was one interesting exception: Grape-Nuts. Post, maker of the iconic brand, blamed a "proprietary technology and a production process that isn't easily replicated" for the shortage, which didn't hit until late 2020. 

Related: Things You Didn't Know About Your Favorite Childhood Cereal

The pandemic's most famously out-of-stock item, toilet paper was nowhere to be found last spring. Toilet-paper sales jumped a staggering 845% as buyers hoarded the stuff and manufacturers struggled to pivot from commercial production and satisfy home buyers instead. Shelves were finally replenished by summer, only to go bare again when COVID-19 cases surged toward the end of the year. 

Related: Things You Never Knew About Toilet Paper

The nation's hens didn't suddenly stop laying eggs when we went into lockdown, but federal guidelines on egg packaging and labeling kept producers from being able to meet increased demand fast enough last spring. Fortunately, the FDA did relax those rules eventually, and stores were able to sell the eggs normally meant for schools, restaurants, and other venues where they were no longer needed.

Related: Is Raising Chickens Cheaper Than Buying Eggs?

Hunger and boredom collided during pandemic lockdowns, prompting legions of folks to suddenly start baking bread. That meant yeast, once a lowly staple of the baking aisle, suddenly became a hot commodity. Yeast sales zoomed up more than 400% as home kitchens churned out everything from sourdough to homemade pizza, according to USA Today. 

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A tumbleweed wouldn't have looked out of place in the pasta aisle of many grocery stores early last year. Americans hit this shelf-stable, comfort-food staple hard at the beginning of the pandemic, stocking up on box after box. That put pasta makers in a crunch as they rushed to hire enough workers, reconfigure packaging, and manage other logistics to ramp up production. Sadly, bucatini fans have found their favorite pasta to be among the last to return to shelves. 

Related: Where to Find Good, Cheap Pasta in Every State

Early in the pandemic, several 20-second rounds of hand-washing became a part of our daily routines, which meant those convenient bottles of liquid hand soap were not long for supermarket shelves. Part of the problem: The pumps that manufacturers typically use for packaging were in short supply. Innovations including soap refills and even soap "swatches" have started to fill in the gaps, especially as customers continue to buy more eco-friendly products.  

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If your idea of comfort food is a hot bowl of soup, you're far from alone. Campbell's in particular had a hard time keeping its products on shelves in the first half of 2020 as shoppers snapped up shelf-stable, easy-to-make offerings such as soup. General Mills also reported a shortage of its Progresso brand, and even cut varieties from its lineup in an effort to meet demand more efficiently.

Related: 30 Easy Soup Recipes That Last for Days

Early in the pandemic, reports trickled out that Tylenol and generic acetaminophen were better over-the-counter painkillers to have on hand in case of a COVID-19 infection. That's because some experts had speculated that using non-steroidals such as ibuprofen could actually worsen symptoms, though researchers have since said those fears are unfounded. Still, the reports were enough to cause a run on Tylenol, forcing Johnson & Johnson to boost production and stores to limit how much people could buy.

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Clorox wipes and their ilk were one of the first things to fly off grocery-store shelves during the pandemic, and one of the last to return. Wipes makers faced not just higher demand, but big supply-chain disruptions and competition for materials from companies making personal protective equipment. In fact, it's only been this year that known brands such as Lysol and Clorox have semi-reliably returned to store shelves.

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Predictably, there was also a pandemic run on the snack aisle, and while that was a good thing for some brands including Lay's, others, such a Pepperidge Farm's iconic Goldfish crackers, didn't fare as well. Goldfish actually hit a sales slump in spring 2020 brought on by unfulfilled demand for the kid-friendly favorite, according to Fox Business.

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We're used to being spoiled for choice in the grocery store's frozen-food section, but near-empty freezer cases were a common sight when sales spiked roughly 70% early in the pandemic. Demand remains strong today, and several companies including such big names as Lean Cuisine, Amy's, and Marie Callender's have been forced to consolidate product lines to keep stores stocked with more-popular favorites.

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Just as newly minted home bakers stocked their kitchens with eggs and yeast as the pandemic took hold, they also snapped up flour. One milling executive described last spring as "Thanksgiving and Christmas all rolled into one" but noted that wheat was in robust supply. The sticking point was logistics, with producers unable to mill and pack flour fast enough to satisfy a shift from commercial to home demand.

Related: Top Bread Makers and Other Bread-Making Supplies for Baking at Home

Paper towels have been frustratingly hard to find during the pandemic, and some aisles remain sparse even a year after lockdowns began. While plenty of shoppers have hoarded paper towels, there are other factors at play, too. One is "lean manufacturing," which means paper-towel makers weren't churning out any excess product before the pandemic in an effort to keep costs down, a practice that left them flat-footed when demand zoomed up. And like many manufacturers, they had issues sourcing materials.

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