Coronavirus: Panicked shoppers empty America’s grocery shelves

Bloomberg

Ever since mid-January, Adnan Durrani, chief executive officer of frozen-food company Saffron Road, knew the coronavirus outbreak was poised to create a spike in demand.
For the past six weeks, his factories have been running at full capacity in order to keep items like frozen chicken pad thai and sesame ginger udon bowls on the shelves at Kroger, Walmart and other stores. Panicked Americans — who only weeks ago were spurning packaged food for fresher options — are now rushing to fill their freezers and cupboards as coronavirus cases spike.
“Folks are really filling their pantries,” Durrani said. He’s predicting his company’s sales over the next three months will be 20% higher than his original forecast. “Everyone sees the barren shelves and it’s not just hand sanitiser. It’s pizzas, it’s frozen foods.”
The coronavirus pandemic is leading Americans to buy more groceries, from poultry to dried goods, as they prepare for an extended period of so-called social distancing. In turn, companies such as Campbell Soup are churning out more canned foods and snacks. Powdered milk sales more than doubled.
At a Costco in Wheaton, droves of shoppers filled their carts with bleach, giant packages of toilet paper and bottled water. Lines of customers waiting to pay snaked through the store.