I watched a couple of reports on the news last night about supermarket shelves being empty in Madrid ( And all over Spain ) , and the fact that many restaurants are not able to offer complete "menu del dias " due to no deliveries ... I was a little sceptical thinking maybe it was exaggerated by the press .
That was until 20 minutes ago when I went to my local supermarket .. well-known , average sized store and found the shelves empty !
Yep .. Almost no fish and meat .. Milk and water at minimum levels .. No rice ! , maybe 3 bags of pasta ... So it IS true !
I decided to stock up on milk and some tinned products "just in case " .. And will be searching a bigger supermarket for pasta and rice .
This has the hallmarks of getting worse before it gets better .
Steve ( the voice of doom )

Same exact experience here. I just came back from Maxi Día and instead of leaving loaded down, I left with half a bag of stuff. On an interesting note, you can really see what the staples are by the empty spaces on the shelves. Lots of cereal, but no jamón, fuet, cheese, yogurt, olive oil, rice, etc.

I too walked through the Maxi Día here in my neighborhood and there was absolutely NO meat to be found, no pork products, no fruit, very few pastas, LOTS AND LOTS of BEER and WINE available, and lots of olives. Had I been smart, I too would've bought milk because I'm on my last couple bottles. Just today I saw news video of milk producers pouring huges amounts of fresh milk onto the ground and down the drain. Yikes.

I then went to "the chicken shop" and had no problem getting chicken breasts.

Today, I did have a "Menú del Día" and without problem, had salad and veal with potatoes.

I'll try again tomorrow late morning to get a few items. Must be tough, however, to shop for your entire family. Since I live alone my needs are light and my variety is narrow.

Being well prepared for the sight I found today helped to ease my shock so I wasn't too worried. I have enough food at home for a week or so and they expect things to be pretty much back to normal by then.

But even worse than allllll the above would be when/IF the bars could no longer serve beer or wine because shipments never arrived. That would bring Spain to a shrieking halt.

Saludos, MadridMan

I've been keeping track of this story all week! a quick question...was the frozen food section totally empty too?
I hope there is a resolution soon!
Oh, will I be able to enjoy my beloved gambas a la plancha this summer? I don't know.

I know I could survive on wine, beer and olives for at least 3 days!

The whole world needs to stand up and take notice of this very real, very urgent global crisis!

Totally agree with you on the global crisis Laduque. And with MM about the cañas. Don't forget coffee. This sleep-deprived city wouldn't wake up without it.

The frozen food section in Spanish groceries is already miniscule compared to an American supermarket (who has room for that stuff in our tiny fridges?). It looked like it was about a 1/4 full at best, mostly with ice cream... (Bad ice cream according to the lady that stopped me to complain about it.) Yesterday my chicken guy didn't have anything in his case, but he gave me half a chicken from a personal stash that he had in the back.

Ok . I finally went up to Corte Ingles in Goya and it was full of food !!! Everything ( except ,maybe , salad stuff and some fish products ) . Of course it means paying a little more . However we'll have to see how long this dispute lasts as to whether big stores like Corte Ingles can continue being so well stocked .

I haven't experienced any shortages yet in the Sierra, I don't know if it's because the supermarkets sell a lot of local produce. It's own lorries were delivering yesterday too.

Last Monday the local petrol station had no basic diesel, but supplies have been fine since.

Until I read this post, I though the shortages were being exaggerated too.