Grape-Nuts cereal has finally returned to US store shelves after months of shortages during the coronavirus pandemic. The brand is now assuring fans that the shipping of its cereal to stores is back to usual levels. Shortages of Grape-Nuts and Grape-Nuts Flakes cereals started at the end of 2020, and led to some aficionados to buy up boxes of the in-demand cereal at inflated prices. For example, in January a third-party seller on Walmart put a 64oz box of the cereal up for sale for $110, when a box of that size typically retails at $6.49. Similarly high prices have been seen on eBay and Amazon. But there's good news for those who paid inflated prices for their Grape-Nuts fix; click or scroll on to find out why...

But Grape-Nuts is sympathetic to fans who have paid over the odds to get hold of the cereal during the shortage, and the company has put aside $10,000 in order to offer those who paid $10 or more for a box between 1 November and 15 March (and have a receipt) "a partial refund of up to $115 to help cover the difference between the amount paid and the suggested retail price of the Grape-Nuts Original cereal box purchased". But it's not only Grape-Nuts that has been hard to come by in stores recently; click or scroll on to see what else has been missing from shelves...

Costco has been suffering from a cheese shortage. In fact, cheese imports to all US retailers have been impacted. This dairy 'crisis' has been caused by higher demand and a global shortage of shipping containers, as well as bottlenecks at several main West Coast sea ports, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland and Seattle, since December last year. In fact, there are containers with cheese stock sitting out at sea unable to get in to the US. Why? One factor is imports to America by sea grew by 20% in January compared to the same month in 2020, with the cost of getting goods into the US by water reaching $6.36 billion, more than double the $2.46 billion cost in January last year. But the rise in shipping demand is not the only reason for the lack of cheese on the shelves; click or scroll on to find out what else is to blame...

Issues in other markets and their tariffs are also having a huge impact. "If cheese is being imported out of Europe or Oceania, trade deals or any number of reasons could affect the import in the US," according to Blake Anderson, President of the American Dairy Products Institute. Strangely, the shortage of imported cheese comes at a time when America's dairy exports have actually increased. Click or scroll to discover what else has become hard to come by...

Costco CFO Richard Galanti reported in the company's recent earnings call that it was also experiencing decreased supplies of olive oil and seafood, as well as other household goods such as furniture, garden supplies and sports equipment due to the container shortages. However, Galanti noted that Costco "expect these pressures to ease in the coming months, but it’s impacting everyone, of course". These aren't the first shortages during the current pandemic though... 

Flour is not only a necessity for making your own bread, but for most home bakes. And so scenes such as this one became increasingly common as bakers across the world depleted supermarket shelves. Sales of flour were up 205% in Italy in March 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, according to research by the Co-op supermarket. In the UK, flour mills worked tirelessly to meet demand, which increased by 92% in the four weeks leading up to 22 March 2020 compared to 2019. The high demand led to snags in the supply chain, and the global flour shortage was still notable in May, prompting disused mills to be brought back into action in the UK in June, including a 1,000-year-old mill in Dorset, England.

Another store cupboard essential that had shoppers going crazy was pasta, and in Canada there was a 205% increase in sales in March 2020, according to Canadian Grocer. German supermarket chain Aldi even sent extra freight trains to Italy to pick up additional packets of fusilli, spaghetti and penne in March and April. In the UK, most supermarkets introduced limits on the number of packets of pasta an individual could buy during the first lockdown, and when the country was plunged into stricter measures for Christmas before a third lockdown, some supermarkets reintroduced limits on dried pasta, among other key products, due to fears of panic buying.

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic it wasn't just wheat-based staples such as flour that were flying off the shelves, as some panic buyers turned to free-from alternatives, such as gluten-free pasta. In Canada stocks of non-gluten products were quickly depleted, which caused concern that coeliac disease sufferers who can’t eat gluten would be left with limited supplies. A similar trend was seen in Australia as well as in the UK, where there was a 17.6% rise in free-from grocery sales between 18 April and 16 May 2020 compared to 2019. Like many of the foods in this round-up, the shopping frenzy for free-from products died down within a couple of weeks.

As people turn to tinned foods, the world started stocking up on tuna with global sales having increased in the first six months of 2020. US shoppers were among those hoarding long-life tuna products, with sales up 142% for the week ending 14 March 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The EU saw sales jump by 80% around the same period.

A year ago, snacks store shelves started to look pretty bare as shoppers stocked up on nibbles for lockdown. In the US, potato chip sales increased 30% for the week ending 14 March 2020 compared to 2019, while pretzels were up 47% and popcorn was up by 48%, according to Nielsen data. 

Bored families are turning to old-fashioned entertainment sources under lockdown and stay-at-home restrictions, but in Dubai the games trend has taken a topical twist. Shoppers are, perhaps bizarrely, buying pandemic-related board games such as Pandemic and Virus, and retailers across the country reported that they had sold out of both games.

As people scrambled to stay active while gyms were shut, there was a surge in demand for home fitness kit. In Taiwan, one online retailer reported a 30% increase in the sale of weightlifting equipment last year compared to 2019, the Taipei Times reported. And the trend didn't die down – American company Peloton expected delays in deliveries of its high-tech exercise bikes right through the end of 2020.

Lockdown measures across the world led to an increased interest in gardening, with almost all fruit and vegetable seeds going out of stock on Walmart’s US site. 

And consoles have seen a boost too. Nintendo’s share price soared to a 52-week high of 47,000 yen ($453) on 16 April 2020, with the Nintendo Switch console contributing significantly to that success. The Switch console sold out at major retailers in the US and UK, and on Amazon and Walmart’s websites, which allow third-party sellers, the console was spotted selling at inflated prices – in fact, on Amazon the Nintendo Switch has a minimum mark up of $125. 

Now discover the old computer and game consoles worth a fortune today