With Rhea County schools closed Tuesday, teacher Kathy Shaver took advantage of her day off to try to use her double coupons to fill her weekly grocery list.
The avid coupon-clipper from Evensville, Tenn., cut the $58 list price of her food items to only $28 with trips to both the Publix and Bi-Lo supermarkets in Hixson. But many items on her grocery list weren’t available and may not be available until weather conditions improve.
“Considering the conditions, I guess I did pretty well,” she said.
Food retailers have been snowed under this week by both the weekend buying surge ahead of the winter storm and the inability since to get normal deliveries of some items after.
While many businesses can put production and deliveries on ice during snowstorms, sellers of milk, bread, eggs and other perishable items don’t enjoy that luxury.
“Cows keep producing milk twice a day whether it snows or not, so we have to be able to get the milk, process it and deliver to the store within three days,” said Scottie Mayfield, president of Mayfield Dairy, the largest milk retailer in East Tennessee and North Georgia. “Fortunately, none of the 200 to 300 farmers that we get milk from had to dispose of any milk because our haulers couldn’t get to them.”
Mayfield operated a rare Sunday processing and delivery shift to get ahead of the storm and stay current with a surge in milk sales over the weekend. With schools closed this week and many refrigerators full of milk, dairy sales went cold Monday and Tuesday.
“We’re not selling any more or less milk, but we are shifting a lot when it was sold,” Mayfield said.
Getting delivery of food shipments across the South has been difficult with snow and ice throughout the Southeast. Shoppers loaded up on milk, bread, eggs and other groceries ahead of the winter storm and now food retailers are struggling to get all of the deliveries through the snow and ice to replenish their stores.
Most area grocery stores have stayed open through the biggest snowfall in Chattanooga in nearly 17 years, although hours have been limited at most major chains.
“Everybody seemed to know that the snow was coming so last weekend was one of our busiest ever,” produce manager Kelton Sawyer said Tuesday while restocking oranges Tuesday at the Bi-Lo in St. Elmo.
Although Bi-Lo delivery trucks made the trip from Greenville, S.C., to Chattanooga on Monday, deliveries to some stores from bakeries, dairies, soft drink companies and other food suppliers were mixed. Sawyer also is unsure if deliveries will come through today.
In the meantime, Darlene Hilliard was pleased to buy one of the last loaves of bread on the shelf of the St. Elmo grocery Tuesday.
Publix Supermarkets had to suspend food deliveries from its Lawrenceville, Ga., warehouse to about 300 stores in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, company spokeswoman Brenda Reid said.
“We’re not moving any of our trucks at this time, and the forecast is for roads to refreeze overnight,” Reid said Tuesday. “We’re running very slim on fresh products in our bakery and produce departments.”
Contact Dave Flessner at 757-6340 or at dflessner@timesfreepress.com
