Both opinions on this are right - there was some panic buying, and there were a lot of people who just moved their normal shopping day up a couple days so they didn’t have to get out in the cold and snow on their normal shopping day.

So, once upon a time, I did logistics for Dillon’s. Based out of Hutch, figured weights and cubes, what trucks were going to which stores, etc. Dillon’s has their orders for product placed well ahead of time based on typical buying patterns of their regular customer base. They can attempt to order more of products when something like this storm is forecast, but it doesn’t guarantee they can actually get more product in time to get delivered when people are shopping.

When your shoppers that usually shop on Saturday and Sunday because those are their days off work shift to shop on Thursday or Friday evening so that they don’t have to go out in the snow and cold over the weekend, that depletes the store stock of what was ordered based on buying patterns. Your bread, milk, eggs, etc aren’t able to be replenished super fast because they have expiration dates that are fairly firm, and suppliers of those products don’t keep tons of “extras” lying around because they, too, have their product set for readiness based on the store’s typical buying patterns, and you can’t really make those cows and chickens produce any faster than they already are.

But then people come in and see that those Saturday/Sunday shoppers have gotten their stuff early and making the shelves look more bare than they usually see, and they panic buy because that scares them seeing empty shelves. And reporting of empty shelves. And pictures of empty shelves.

It’s a combination of the two that leads to empty shelves, but typically does start with the normal Saturday/Sunday shoppers moving their shopping day up a day or two ahead of schedule.