Are there food shortages in Michigan?

Yes and no.

I talked to an employee recently about some frozen vegetables that have been missing form the store for 4 weeks. He said they just are not getting the shipments in. So IMO there is something wrong at the factory or farm level with this vegetable. (It turns out it is related to the store brand and covers multiple vegetables.)

This summer the cost of gas in Michigan had been about $3.39 per gallon. It has now risen to $4.59 per gallon. With fuel costs that high it’s no surprise that some farms have simply closed, unable to pay their bills with the high cost of fuel. Yet still other proxy companies buy up these farms for China.

In other cases, grocery stores cannot stock shelves because they cannot hire enough employees. Grocery stores have a razor thin profit margin and they cannot afford temp workers as the temp worker pay is at least $5 more than a permanent employee pay.

In other cases, someone seems to be buying up all frozen gluten free burritos, and all pico de gallo that is available so we get none.

So, there are some food shortages but they are minor.