The baby-formula shortage is getting … worse?

A White House website didn’t solve it. Airlift flights from Europe didn’t fix it. Nine months after the New York Times first reported the shortages and three months after Joe Biden acknowledged he finally learned of it, retail inventory of baby formula dropped to its lowest level in July, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning:

Availability of powdered formula products in U.S. stores earlier this month dropped to the lowest level so far this year, with about 30% of products out of stock for the week ended July 3, according to the market-research firm IRI. While availability improved slightly last week, out-of-stock levels remain higher than in recent months, and shortages remain acute in states including Alaska, Utah and Wyoming, IRI data showed.

At the same time, consumers are finding fewer choices of brands, sizes or formats of formula on grocery-store shelves as the variety of available products shrinks. U.S. supermarkets over the four weeks ended June 26 sold an average of 11 different formula products per store weekly, according to IRI, compared with a weekly average of 24 from 2018 to 2021.

Keith Milligan, controller of Piggly Wiggly stores in Georgia and Alabama, said his stores are carrying five of the 30 formula products they typically sell, compared with about 10 in late spring. Store shelves aren’t empty, but have many gaps, Mr. Milligan said, and customers are purchasing what is available.

“It has not improved at all,” Mr. Milligan said of Piggly Wiggly’s formula supply.

What about Joe Biden’s touted airlifts of supply from Europe? That may have helped take the edge off, but that’s all. The amount transported covers less than a week of US consumption- READ MORE