The baby formula shortage across the United States is continuing to hit parents hard, with many having to go to multiple stores, drive hours away, or even have complete strangers ship them what they need to make sure their babies don’t starve.
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While there are definitely supply chain issues, among other things, the 2020 toilet paper crisis also warned us that Americans would likely start stocking up on formula, either for themselves or for resale, and exacerbate the problem even further.
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Anecdotally speaking, a TikToker is already proving that to be true, as she caught a single person clearing out the shelves at her local Target, and recorded the unproductive interaction to share with the world.
The video was posted by @chopnedits, the brother of the woman recording, and showed rows of almost completely empty shelves — a familiar sight at this point for anyone trying to feed their infant.
“You have a whole cart. Look at this. Look at all this. Look at the shelves,” she tells the woman, panning to her cart filled solely with formula.
“But I need it for my baby,” the purchaser replies.
“You don’t think I need it for my baby, too?”
The two continue to go back and forth, with the person recording doing her best to explain that even if the other woman were to let her take one single can of formula to feed her child, she’ll still be preventing a number of other families from providing for their children that day just because she felt the need to stock up.
“This is the whole reason that there’s a formula shortage. You take all the formula off the shelf and buy it all at once?” she says, as the woman walks away. “That’s not your problem, right?”
A number of viewers questioned why stores haven’t put a limit on how much formula can be purchased at once, the same way so many did with toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and other difficult to find items at the start of the pandemic. Some people said their local stores were implementing that, and the lady may not have been able to actually purchase all of the products when she got to the register.
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Whether she succeeded in wiping the shelves clean or not, more people were frustrated at the lack of consideration for others on display here.
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But others claimed they would do the exact same thing for their baby during a formula crisis.
“She was there first and if it’s for my child ima make sure my child is good before anyone else’s sorry,” wrote @babeydee_.
“I mean technically this formula would only last a month for one child,” @ivllxx claimed. “I’m not gonna lie I might have done the same for my baby.”
Unfortunately this is a problem with no good immediate solution, and it’s allegedly something federal regulators are looking into to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
*First Published: May 19, 2022, 5:55 am
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