According to Bloomberg News, the shortage of baby formula food took a strange turn for the worse last week in as many as 130,000 stores across the whole United States. The rate for the out-of-stock surged to 70% in the previous week, based on data from Datasembly, a retail tracking company. In several cities and states, the conditions were even worse.
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More than two-thirds of the states had shortfall rates of 70% and beyond, with Missouri, California, Louisiana, Montana, Minnesota, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona registering above 80%. Utah was hit the hardest, with the figure escalating to 89%, up from the previous week’s 49%.
In Houston, the rates were astronomical, with the figure jumping up to 90%, up from 56% last week. Sacramento and San Francisco, which earlier had the lowest rate related to out-of-stock, recording the figure at 32% and 31%, respectively, witnessed their shortfall rates hike last week to 87% and 88%.
Indianapolis recorded the lowest shortfall rate at 49% for this week that ended May 21st, up from 39% in the last week. West Texas was a close second with an out of the stock rate of 53%, but that is still more than twice the recorded shortage of 26% rate from the last week.
The Biden administration invoked the Defense Production Act to hasten the production formula in the present week. The president has ordered to use of government plans to import formula and the ingredients, which he stated would be faster than getting them shipped into the country. The Food and Drug Administration said it would make import rules easier. Few cities and states have enacted provisions for preventing price gouging.
Bloomberg News on May 23rd, more than 70,000 pounds of baby formula reached Indianapolis from overseas. Brian Deese, the top economic adviser of President Joe Biden, revealed on CNN that “State of the Union” represents approximately 15% of the total national volume that is required on the way.
The commissioner of the FDA, Robert Califf, revealed before Congress on May 26th that the situation should be beyond normal within two months.
