Consumer and Provider

[stickmaker]

I like orange juice with pulp in it. Minute Maid used to make a Country Style which I really liked. Now, I can't find it. In fact, the only Minute Maid orange juice (besides specialty blends like High Calcium) I can get is specifically marked Low Pulp.

It was around for years. Now it's either discontinued, or Kroger's simply isn't stocking it. Pulp adds texture, flavor and fiber. Why would it be discontinued?! And none of the other brands seem to produce anything equivalent.

I get this over and over. A product I like - maybe new, maybe old - is no longer available, and people either don't know why or the reason they give doesn't make sense.

"Well, nobody bought it." Yeah? They why was it always either not in stock or you only had a few?

I think this is like the reason _Gilligan's Island_ got taken off the air, when everyone expected a fourth season, due to the ratings. (The network head's wife liked _Gunsmoke_.)

Comments

[kengr]

A lot of the problem is the automated tracking systems grocery stores use. They report sales on products.

What they *don't* report is stuff that isn't selling because they *sold out* of the limited amount they had allocated shelf space for.

Or, to use an example that annoys the hell out of me, because the guy who stocks the sodas (who works for the soda distributor, not the store)didn't bother reading the shelf tags and filled the empty slot for X with Y (which had the next slot over and isn't selling worth a damn).

Worse yet, I've actually been told by someone at my local store that sometimes they driver will do that *on purpose* to get rid of the extra Y on his truck.