A problem with product availability at Safeway

A well written letter and a valid complaint.

I would like to point out that there are alternatives to shell eggs
that can be used in a lot of baking. I have a box of Egg Substitute
that I got at the whole foods store. You use so much of this powder
in place of whole egg in baking. I've also read in various recipe
books about other things that can be used in place of eggs in baked
goods.

I doubt you could use egg substitute is something such as stuffing for
a turkey but it does work for things involving dough or batter. Try
some out, and then keep whatever works best for you on hand just in
case this happens again.

You can't make anything w/o eggs

You know just this past Wednesday I had to go to 5 (FIVE) different
stores for eggs!!!!!!!!!!!1


WHAT THE HECK?

No, ya know what's REALLY annoying? Having ONE grocery store in the
entire town that sells Vanilla Extract and having them be COMPLETELY
sold out 2.5 weeks before Christmas and them not bothering to restock
because "no one ever uses that stuff" (direct quote)! How do these
people not use Vanilla?!?! Lol, anyway, I understand your
frustration, but Christmas Eve IS kinda late to be looking for
stuff....

All of the stores in our area were also out of eggs. Of course I
decided to shop on Saturday, which was a definite lack of planning on
my part. Christmas comes at the same time each year, so I shouldn't
have been surprised. It's not like it snuck up on me.

It's not like they can make more or speed up production. Hens only lay
so many.

Did you ever stop and consider why not only Safeway but most other
grocery stores run out of eggs just before a major Holiday? "Deviled
Eggs!!" They have made quite the comeback the past few years. You
shouldn't be blaming Safeway or other grocery store chains for the
problem but Martha Stewart and all of those other Food Queens on the
Food Network. My Mother is the queen of deviled eggs. Has been for
decades and she shops very, very early in order to have enough egg
supply for her speciality. She's famous in our neck of the woods
because of them. Too bad you can't buy them in bulk, freeze and then
thaw them as needed. Hey...........that's quite an invention that
needs to happen!

This is what happens when you wait until the last minute to buy staple
foods that you need for a holiday: they all sell out and the store
can't get any more delivered in time.

Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on
Safeway's part. Next time go shopping a little bit sooner.

Well you should have learned your lesson and went there earlier if you
had the problem on Thanksgiving.

I notice the safeway here seems to drop the prices of the eggs to
bring in the customers, and it works. Problem is, when they are going
for a dollar or less a dozen they sell out fast, as people stock up on
them and there is no limit on quantity. It's quite possible they
dropped the price that week too. Can't say for sure, because they
didn't here. However, RiteAid has them low and they were sold out the
other day here.

I think it's difficult for them to keep them stocked if it happened to
be a price issue. While I do believe they should try to stay as
stocked as possible, I also agree with the posters that good planning
and stocking up earlier on the eggs, especially knowing you will be
needing them is something we all have to do.

The problem I have here is that there's no way to tell why they ran
out of eggs.

Maybe this year a whole lot of holiday egg-eaters moved to the area,
or maybe they haven't bothered to track sales on previous years.
Maybe a klutzy employee dropped a pallet of eggs on the ground and
smashed them all, or maybe a lazy employee just orders the same number
every week even though there are certain times of year that customers
predictably have omelets for brunch. I don't know.

I also don't know whether they maybe didn't order as many eggs as they
could have sold because they can only bring so much in and they were
stocking up on turkeys and eggnog and gingerbread mix. Maybe they
expect the sales for the few days after Christmas Eve to be very
sluggish and they don't want to risk the eggs going bad. Or maybe
people in a nearby neighborhood have caught on that eggs cost more in
their supermarket than in yours and started organizing egg-buying
trips.

Without knowing a lot more about how supermarkets work than I do, I
don't know whether I would agree that Safeway did anything wrong.

Given that Stacey acknowledged that everything else is fine at Safeway
and that she only brought this up after Safeway ran out of eggs the
day before two holidays in a row, though, she seems reasonable enough
that if Safeway responded along the lines of "Thank you for your
letter; unfortunately despite our best efforts we underestimated the
demand for eggs this year" she'd accept that.

Now I'm all curious, though, how Safeway decides how many eggs to get
the week before Christmas. :)

I'm going to side with the letter writter on this one. Once, I
understand, but running completely out of eggs twice during the
holidays on dates no where near each other is kinda rediculous.
Personally I have never seen a staple like eggs completely out of
stock. That's like saying there wasn't any bread left. A previous
poster pointed out instances where an 18 count package was on sale and
sold completely out, is that to mean that all the eggs were completely
out of stock or just that particular package size? Everyone is quick
to point out too that the letter writer should have "planned ahead".
For what? Maybe she didn't need eggs until the days/times that she
went and bought them. I personally like my eggs fresh. I don't think
this should be an issue.

Now, is it possible that maybe the eggs just weren't stocked? As an
annoyed custer, I would have inquired about the eggs just to make sure
that they weren't short staffed, and hadn't yet realized they were
out. Also, since I have never been to a Safeways, I don't know if it
is a grocery store for sure. If it is simply a convenience store, I
take back what I said.

I have no preconceived ideas about you Tina. That's just how it all
came off to me. Why shouldn't I be able to tell you when something
rubs me the wrong way, in the event that it did the same to the OP? I
am a bystander, and I would rather hear it from a bystander and be
prepared that the OP may have taken it harshly, rather than wait for a
blow up to occure.

You weren't the only one that replied.

Sorry, you'll just have to plan ahead better. People who did so got
to the store ahead of you. I imagine the store did the best it could
to be stocked up.

So, why wait until the very, literally, last minute to buy them?
Please explain how they are supposed to know how much to order?
Should they call everyone's home and ask if they're planning on
waiting 'til the last second to buy eggs?
They don't KNOW what they're gonna need.
Next time, don't wait until the eve of the holiday.
Failure to plan your part does not constitute an emergency on theirs.