Parents struggle with baby formula shortage
When Cabot mom Kylie Salkeld visits the grocery store to get baby formula for her 1-month-old daughter, more often than not she’s expecting disappointment.
“We go from store to store, and every time we go to a store, we look at the shelves, and either it’s immediately heartbreaking, or it's ‘well, I can get one can,’ and then we can go to the next store and see if we can get another can,” she said.
Like other moms in Butler County, Salkeld is searching for a product that has become increasingly hard to find as a nationwide baby formula shortage drags on.
Fueled by larger supply chain problems and a February recall of some baby formula products made by Abbott Nutrition — which included Similac, Alimentum and EleCare baby formula — the scarcity of formula is causing moms, such as Salkeld, to travel long distances to find food for their infants.
Doug Sprankle, of Sprankle’s Neighborhood Market in Saxonburg, said the difficulty of finding formula may have been worsened by widespread panic and bulk-buying.
“When there’s an uptick in purchases and people start buying more than they normally would, it puts a strain on the supply chain,” Sprankle said. “A lot of it has to do with social media and word-of-mouth. People get freaked out, and instead of just buying one or two jars, they might buy a whole case.”
In his experience, when shortages rocket to new heights due to bulk buying, it takes some time for things to stabilize.
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