06 March 2021 (02:29-UTC-07 Tango 06) 16 Esfand 1399/22 Rajab 1442/23 Xin-Mao 4719

For the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed a growing shortage of cat litter products at stores in Bannock County, Idaho.

I took this photo in the Pocatello Fred Meyer, on 05MAR2021 at about 22:50, just before they closed for the night.  Notice that even litter boxes and some other litter accessories are short supply as well.

Across the street at Winco, they’ve been shifting around slow selling basic clay litter to fill in the empty spaces of the faster selling clumping litter.  Is the litter shortage due to panic buying, or continued problems with a new global logistical supply system that still doesn’t work?

In September 2020, a Canadian news report suggested that cat litter shortages were the result of panic buying and that ‘experts’ expected high demand to last long after the ‘pandemic’ ended!

However, in April 2020, a possibly ignorant Alabama Public Radio stated that pet products were not subject to panic buying, but at the same time encouraged their listeners to stock up on pet supplies!

That Alabama Public Radio report came a few months after a report out of the United Kingdom, in January 2020, which stated that a big supplier of cat litter had “collapsed”, leaving British stores without litter!

But what about now, in 2021?  On 06MAR2021, a study was made available regarding the global cat litter market, saying pandemic panic-attacks had changed the dynamics of the litter market.  The ‘pay-per-view’ study gives predictions through 2025.

Another cat litter market study, also released in March, gives predictions through 2027.

Yet another litter market study predicts that post-pandemic litter sales will hit $5.37-billion by 2027!

And yet another study says it’s not just litter but litter boxes that are experiencing skyrocketing demand!

There are dozens of cat litter market studies out there, all saying demand is only going to go up, and it’s blamed on what I call pandemic panic-attack syndrome.

Recently, a cat litter company called Dr. Elsey’s moved production from Colorado to Wyoming, into a bigger factory to meet high demand for their products.

Pretty Litter recently joined up with Marquee Brands/Martha Stewart in an attempt to increase sales.

Logistics, better known as the supply chain, is partly to blame for random shortages as well.  It’s one reason why Arizona has been relying on its National Guard to deliver food to grocery stores ever since the pandemic panic-attack began.

An article by DHL, about the difficulties of distributing the CoViD vaccines, indicates that such global vaccine operations are impacting the supply of everything else!

In Pennsylvania, a large trucking company just shutdown a distribution operation, affecting at least one thousand employees!  The reason was that the client they were serving dumped them and signed a new contract with a new supplier.

Globally, a lot of bigger supply companies are taking over smaller logistics providers, and whenever that happens operations are shutdown and people lose their jobs, and that has to affect supply chain.

An article by Logistics Management says the pandemic panic-attack “amplified existing logistics challenges around the world”.  Meaning the global supply system was already in trouble.

But even more importantly, the logistics industry is actually getting rid of human labor.  Recently, Swiss logistics company CEVA announced it is replacing human labor in Canada with robots, those robots are made by a Massachusetts company called Berkshire Grey.  This is very important because according to another article, Berkshire Grey’s sudden involvement in automating the North American logistics industry began just before the pandemic panic-attack: “When I visited its Massachusetts headquarters last year, following a massive $263 million Series B, the company discussed some pretty aggressive growth plans. Mind you, that was before the pandemic had really touched down in the U.S. in a meaningful way.

If anything, COVID-19 has accelerated interest in automation….”-Brian Heater, TechCrunch

Manufacturing.net: The Future of Warehouse Logistics

Shipping Watch UK: Logistics chain bottlenecks trigger longer contracts for container carriers

U.S. Food Crisis: MILITARY DISTRIBUTION SUCCESS PROVES THE MARKET SYSTEM HAS FAILED!

Pandemic Panic-Attack: GLOBAL SUGAR CRISIS, BETTER STOCK UP NOW!

Pandemic Panic-Attack: HOSPITAL SHORTAGE? DON’T BLAME PANDEMIC, BLAME OBAMACARE!

Pandemic Panic-Attack: SHOPPING MAYHEM AT POCATELLO WINCO!