Grocery stores among industries seeing supply chain issues heading into holiday season

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Grocery stores are among the many industries struggling with supply chain issues ahead of what is typically the busiest time of the year with the holidays approaching.

Some in the industry are warning that you may not find certain items you were looking for.

On Friday, it was a busy afternoon in North Philadelphia as grocery shoppers stocked up on goods for the coming week.

But many customers say they are not finding all the items they were looking for and instead finding some shelves bare.

"It's become a problem. You got people arguing in lines and stuff and basically racing to get the food," said Eric Gibson of North Philadelphia.

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Alex Baloga, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, says the supply chain issues are not exclusive to Philadelphia.

"That's really a national and international issue, and there's a lot of factors to it," said Baloga. "There are labor shortages. Some of the plants making these items might have the ingredients but don't necessarily have the workforce to produce as much."

Economists say the supply chain issues are global.

"You're seeing glass production in China ground to a halt because of closures due to the pandemic. That leads to shortages for the food industry, lead to shortages for the liquor industry," said Kamins of Moody's Analytics. "Until we can move past the pandemic, pass the intermittent closures, move past China shutting down ports, things like that, it's going to be hard to pull out of it."