Maybe there was no truck? Try delivery?

Frustrating, for sure! I keep hearing about a cream cheese shortage, but there seems to be plenty based on my stops today. Lots of Philly's and the store's own brand. TJ's also had tons of theirs.

Use vanilla wafers and wait until the 3 or 4 years of pandemic is over.

It's strange how things disappear from shelves! I understand the hand sanitizer/TP/baking stuff at first, but my hubby's frozen burritos?

I'm running into all kinds of random things MIA. Onions, seasoned fries, lettuce... I'm talking none with nothing to substitute. Well, I can make my own seasoned fries. :)

They were missing last summer too! To qualify; I buy Aldis brand because it is non-dairy. I forgot because the next week they were back on the shelf and I stocked up.

Want my recipe for home made Grahms?

It's the supply chain problems....get your covid shots and boosters wear your mask and lets get over this mess!!

San Pelligrino water was missing for a few weeks.....and lettuce, and L'il Ceasar dog food....I tell you Emmett was not happy with Kennel ration!

Add water chestnuts to the missing list. Checked a couple of Publix stores as well as Winn Dixie and Aldi's - nada.

It does seem to be random, even within the same chain -- one location will be wiped out, the other fully stocked. {shrug} My sister did say she had trouble finding the graham cracker pie crust she likes but finally located them.

It does seem completely random! What may be in short supply somewhere is available in bulk elsewhere. I too have read of the 'acute' cream cheese shortage. Except for some of the flavored whipped offerings, my store shelves are full of it....and on sale as well!!

Other than the L'il Caesar lindac92 mentions (my boy not happy about that either!), I have seen availability of various items fluctuate. Mostly canned and prepared/boxed stuff but occasionally produce, eggs, butter and bone-in, skin-on chicken. You can find whole chickens easily but not cut up chickens that still look like chicken and not mystery meat. I am getting more and more adept at cutting up a whole chicken!

Instore bakery goods are in short supply. Plenty of prepared, packaged baked goods but short on the bagels, buns, fresh bread and donuts they used to carry made instore. That might be more of a staffing issue than a supply chain breakdown.

Look for already prepared graham cracker crumbs sold with other baking supplies.

Rho Dodendron - I would love to have your recipe for graham crackers.

No name brand cream cheese here either, just the store brand.

I suspect some of this may be due to smaller suppliers that have either been impacted by or gone out of business, due to the pandemic. Some companies can't get supplies &/or packaging, others can't get shippers/delivery drivers as well. Not all retailers get their stock from the same sources either.

With the loss of around 800K lives here in the USA, and millions worldwide, and millions more hospitalized or disabled by COVID, it stands to reason commerce would have to be affected.

Frankly I think these supply chain issues were looming anyway, pandemic or not. Yes, due to the many small and medium sized suppliers going out of business, and this happened before the pandemic. It was a steady drumbeat of closings regionally and locally which surely was not good for resiliency for anyone who was paying attention. The convoluted supply chains that have been created due to trying to save labor and other costs may come back to bite these companies in the long term. Of course who knows if the market can provide viable alternatives. When I was a kid, we had regional dairy farmers delivering milk to local dairies, which delivered direct to homes. Now the stuff comes from halfway across the country due to being irradiated and having a much longer shelf life . . . who knows what the food wave of the future might be. We always try to find local suppliers and develop relationships with them, but ironically most of them were part of that "going out of business" trend I mentioned. For example, my county used to be ringed by apple orchards of med. size. All gone. The closest one is at least 40 miles away . . . etc.

I didn't know Aldi's grahams were non dairy, that's good to know. I do know they tasted better than the ones I got at our other grocery.

Our local grocery is also randomly out of things, but they usually come back in, it's not a matter of the company going out of business or not making the product. Thankfully with the cornucopia of options, I can get by with the shortages . . .

This recipe is over 40 years old. Enjoy

Thank you very much, Rho. How old a recipe is doesn't bother me at all. It's tried and true.

I posted this on another thread but check Target for graham crackers if you have one near you. I often firget they have grocery items and they show as being in stock, at leat online and near me.

I forget about Target too. Rarely shop there.

Thanks for the head's up, oly.

I prefer the graham cracker brand they sell at Aldi's so I had to go there to get something else and I got some graham crackers there, they weren't low on that product . . . They had almost no ricotta cheese at my regular store, (only whole milk) so that's why I was at Aldi's . . .

My local Meijers was full up on graham crackers today, but I already had some. Also full up on cream cheese as far as I could tell. I only buy the neufchatel and I have to cut down even on that. Hubs loves his cheesecake but we had one for Thanksgiving so that is going to have to hold us for a while, I'm on a fairly strict diet, as per my post about lowering LDL.

I had to do some last blitz before Christmas grocery shopping yesterday to pick up some fresh stuff and the roast I ordered. The difference in supplies between last week and this was rather astounding!! A LOT of bare shelves! No fresh cranberries at all and no canned sauce. Most baking supplies were quite low as well. Limited egg selection, butter, pet food, flavored cream cheese and even breads! I am assuming this is primarily due to a holiday crunch and less to supply chain issues but I am sure those are playing a factor as well.

gardengal, add in panic buying because someone whispered S N O W sometime soon. I haven't seen any shortages here, but I mostly shop the food coop and a small organic food store that has just about everything I need. The farmer's market was well stocked with fall/winter veggies and meat. I went to a small supermarket where I buy stuff I can't get at the other places, like beer and wine. I needed some fine salt for a recipe that kosher doesn't do as well in, and since I was in the baking aisle, I thought I'd pick up some extra pumpkin pie makings. I found organic evaporated milk, canned organic pumpkin and organic flour, all on well stocked shelves. But that was yesterday; I didn't venture out today.

Rho, I copied your recipe. Is the flour just plain white? and does the brown color come from the brown sugar?

"w wheat flour" is Whole Wheat Flour.

As I recall these crackers are nowhere as sweet as Honey Maid Grahms.

I always bake with margarine not butter and never add salt.

I'll save that graham cracker recipe also.

I have a dough docker that I use when I make crackers, but it's in L.A.

There were no graham crackers at my local grocery stores either, so I decided to make a different pie with a blind baked crust. I’ve never blind-baked a crust before and I failed utterly!! My crust slumped halfway down the sides of my pie dish…it looked more like a tart crust, it was so shallow. So I just ended up making brownies. :-/

You need to use pie weights when you blind-bake a pie crust. I line the pie crust with no-stick aluminum foil (with the no-stick side on the crust), and I use special polished landscaping gravel (which I have thoroughly washed) as the weights. I have a fair amount of this gravel leftover and thought this would be a good use for it.

I guess that you have figured this out by now, however.

your missing fact that so many people are using

graham crackers for pie crust and smores for holidays.

Yeah, Lovemycorgi I found out about the piecrust slumping the hard way too. Got me some pie weights but you can also use a jar/bag of dried beans. I had some just for the purpose, you can reuse them. Not to eat but to weigh down a pie crust so it doesn't shrink.

Lars and pinkmountain, I actually used pie weights, those white ceramic balls…. But I think I don’t have enough…I *thought* they were only to keep the bottom crust from puffing up…I didn’t realize you had to fill the pie dish up with them so the crust wouldn’t slump. Ah well, live and learn. I’ve got another disc of pie dough chilling in the fridge so I can try again.

FWIW, I've seen the piecrust lined with foil and then weights added on top of the foil, which might help prevent slumping.

I think parchment is better under the ceramic pie weight balls. I fill the dish with them, and as soon as it's cool enough to touch, I pull the paper into a cone, grab the point for moving to the jar, and they just funnel back in They don't prevent slumping however.

Lovemycorgi, you're right about the weights. They prevent the puffage. Docking would too, but only if the filling is very thick or dry--otherwise it would leak! What prevents slumping is a very cold dish/crust and a very hot oven. Chill your crust lined pie plate for half an hour, and blind bake at 425° F.