Why Safeway Is Suddenly Low on Meat, Milk & Produce

If you shop at one of the Bay Area's 270 Safeway grocery stores, you may have noticed a sign posted up on the door over the weekend, something like this one spotted at the Bernal Heights branch on Mission Street. After several tipsters reported shortages of bread, milk and produce at their local branches, Safeway sent word over the EaterWire that a fire broke out at 10:30 a.m. on Friday morning at their facility in Tracy, CA. The fire was fully contained in the electrical substation, causing the power to go out in all five of their warehouses: those devoted to produce/perishables, frozen foods, general merchandise, basic grocery, and meat. They were able to get everything back up and running on generators by 5 p.m. that day, but all deliveries into and out of the facility were cancelled. Said facility is the size of 33 football fields, suppling all products to Safeway outposts in Northern California, Hawaii and Northern Nevada. So you're not the only one experiencing a shortage.

The normal delivery schedule resumes today, but, as you can imagine, it will take a few days to restabilize as branches experience higher than average demand to make up for the weekend shortage. Safeway public relations manager Teena Massingill says smaller stores "will look pretty good tomorrow," but it may take the higher volume stores, like the Safeway in the Castro a.k.a. "Gayway" and the one in the Marina a.k.a. "Dateway" a few more days to recover. Please do enlighten the world with status updates on what your particular branch has/doesn't have in the comments section.

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