Why why why do my favourite food items always vanish from the shelves? Examples:
For years I had a favourite pasta tomato sauce. I have complained about this before! One day, it simply vanished from the shelves. The creamy pasta sauce from the same brand stayed, as did another (less delicious) tomato pasta sauce. Sigh. That led me to another brand which I eventually found and fell in love with. The particular sauce (Arrabiata) I liked was always the first to go from the shelves, so I obviously wasn’t the only person who liked it. But at the very beginning of the pandemic, the whole brand just vanished. And very sadly, has not reappeared. I know I can make my own, very deliciously, but sometimes I just want one out of a jar!
My husband and I have a favourite Thai basil and garlic stir-fry sauce (Pad Kaprow). Yes, I could make it myself, but would it be the same? No. The answer is no. We’ve bought it for around five years, a regular stir-fry with chicken and veges, a quick, easy, and healthy dinner. Our big supermarket in the city always stocked it, even though other supermarkets and warehouses don’t – they stock all the other items from that one manufacturer, all the curry pastes, the kaffir lime leaves, the lemongrass, but never the basil and garlic paste. Supply issues meant the range was being depleted at our supermarket recently, but it was obvious when there was a new shipment. This time, however, for the first time ever, no basil/garlic sauce. Argh!
My absolute favourite ice-cream in the world was Kapiti (a local producer) Gingernut ice-cream. A gingery ice-cream, made with bits of gingernut biscuit in the ice-cream and preserved ginger, it was heaven to this ginger-lover. (And the best part was knowing my husband – not a fan of ginger – wouldn’t eat it!) I know many others who loved it too. I bought more than I should have as an occasional treat, but obviously that was not enough to singlehandedly sustain production. I notice now that they have a lemongrass and ginger ice-cream, which will have great Asian flavours (and which I must hunt up before it disappears), but it won’t have the nostalgic taste of the gingernuts my Nana used to make. And so my loyalty to Kapiti has waned. How dare they remove my favourite flavour?
I rarely eat chips or crackers, though my husband loves them. But when we do have something like that, usually only when we have visitors and I buy or make a dip to go with them, we used to always have Grain Waves, Honey and Mustard flavour. Of course, a year or two ago, they also vanished from the shelves. We can still get a range of other flavours. But they’re not honey and mustard.
Why, Universe? Are you trying to tell me not to get attached to things I love? Are you trying to remind me that everything in this world is transient, that nothing is guaranteed? I know that. I think everyone knows that after the last few years. Can’t you allow us a few simple pleasures? A garlicky stir-fry, a tangy tomato sauce, and a gingery ice-cream? That’s not too much to ask, is it?
Oh I feel this. I was so upset at Trader Joe’s this weekend when I found they no longer carried my favorite creole pasta sauce. I really think it’s harder on top of the last few years – such a silly thing to be upset about but I really was!
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Ask store manager if product is out of stock or not being manufactured any more. Often they can tell you when a product will, hopefully, be restocked.
Supply chain issues are VERY real so do not ask for promises.
You can also check on line with the manufacturer and see if you can reasonably order a case directly or find where else nearby they have a different distributor.
I SO UNDERSTAND the problem. It is not fun. Sometimes there is a solution.
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Oh, I so understand this!! So many things I have loved and relied on that suddenly disappear from the shelves! I KNOW I had a draft on this subject a while back and it is no longer in my “drafts” folder — but I can’t find it among my published posts either, so I can only conclude that I deleted it at some point. Bah humbug. At any rate, it included my preferred brand & style of sanitary pads (fortunately, I did not need them for a whole lot longer after that!), a laundry stain remover that always worked like a charm for me, a brand of fudge imported from the UK that I used to be able to buy at the bookstore (of all places!),and (more recently) my favourite brand of pen (although I think I might be able to get those through Amazon…).
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lIt sucks, doesn’t it?! lol
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I so feel your pain. Almost every product I love seems to disappear—I love it because it’s just different enough, and I guess that difference means not marketable enough…which sucks.
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It does suck. We found another source for our favourite stir-fry paste, and now have six months supply! Unashamed hoarding, but not for the usual reasons. lol
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