Flour and Toilet Paper Are Back at N.Y. Supermarkets, but There’s a Catch

  • Date: 14-Jul-2020
  • Source: The New York Times
  • Sector:Retail
  • Country:Oman
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Flour and Toilet Paper Are Back at N.Y. Supermarkets, but There’s a Catch

Shoppers are accustomed to enjoying an extraordinary variety of choices, but the pandemic has changed that.

Pasta, in many shapes and sizes, is back in abundance at most supermarkets, but some food companies have reduced their number of offerings.Credit...Juan Arredondo for The New York TimesJuly 14, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

Shoppers no longer stare at aisles devoid of toilet paper. Pasta, in many shapes and sizes, is back in abundance. And eager home bakers can restart their mixers and ovens now that flour and yeast have finally reappeared.

"I was thrilled to see King Arthur whole wheat in good supply at Fairway,“ David Toberisky, 68, a retiree who lives on Manhattan's Upper East Side, said of one highly desirable brand of flour.

But while the bare shelves brought on by the coronavirus pandemic have largely been restocked across New York City and the country, times are still far from normal at supermarkets, which face less pronounced but potentially more enduring shifts.

Americans have become accustomed to enjoying an extraordinary variety of choices “” sometimes a dozen or more brands of everything from ketchup to potato chips to, yes, toilet paper.

The pandemic changed all that.

Many companies have "really curtailed the number of different offerings“ they produce