With the social result to Covid-19, what products remain on food market shelves?

With about a week into the social-distancing result of Covid-19, I observe that the popular items that reman on shelves, are somewhat unexpected. I can understand the lack of toilet paper, although I'm not sure why. TP was gone long before our local fresh veggies & fruits were, although they, too, were soon depleted. I already have an 8-month supply of TP, and almost 3-years of personally produced freeze dried, veggies, fruit, main course entrees, deserts, and powdered drinks, plus two freezers [not including the freezer portions of two refrigerators] so food is not critical to me, either.

However, I am somewhat surprised that items like candy remain plentiful; cookies, too. Still a variety of chips. Ice cream stock is lower than 50% of normal-stocked condition. I have two separate stores which remain open 27/7 within reasonable distance, and I shop at about 2 AM to avoid significant social contact. What are your observations?

It makes a certain amount of sense to me.  TP, for example.  It's not that overstocking TP is likely to be helpful against coronavirus but you walk into the store prioritizing "what can't I do without?" rather than how much do I have and how long will it last.  Besides, why buy Kleenex when TP can can serve either purpose?

Here in Downtown Denver a huge new population of millennials eats out a lot.  Suddenly, a majority of the population is planning to feed themselves for the next three weeks.  The average kitchen already has a certain stock of chips, cookies, ice cream, candy, soda pop, maybe some cans of chicken soup , sugar, spices, flour, beans- probably some of it past it sell by date.  It seems most middle class kitchens just store vast quantities of this stuff till it expires.

But they don't have a lot fresh meat and veg and fruit in their fridges.  For a fresh meal, most of these millennials eat out.  Like, 7-12 meals out a week . Therefore, at least around here it seems true, demand for meat and veg and TP suddenly far exceeds supply.

I visited an elderly neighbor who complained bitterly about the TP supply.  The store told her to come back tomorrow at 7am when they would have a new shipment and the poor thing got up an hour early to get there by 7am, when she was told that they were already sold out.

I told her not to worry, I would find her some TP but she scoffed, "Oh, I don't need any!  I have hundreds of rolls in the basement.  I just wanted some more to be safe."     That's one sign of some crazy demand.  I told her that people aren't rational these days, " I just read Corona sales are down, like, 50% since the coronavirus started."  Which I did read somewhere but now that turns out to be bullshit- sales of Corona beer are up 5% since Jan 1.   Perhaps I am too ready to to attribute unreason too our collective response these days.

QUESTION:I know that having a good stockpile is popular practice in some religions.  Is your stockpile a religious, cultural, family or individual choice, I wonder? 

(Feel free to disregard if too personal)

As for my motivation to store food and supplies, I'll admit that it started as religious, but I thought about the rationale, and the first thought that occurred to me was the possibility of a protracted truckers' strike because food retailers are entirely dependent on the continuous delivery. The original suggestion of my church leaders was a 2-year supply of not just food, but other essentials: TP, toothpaste, medicine [at least OTC], but also cash. Recently, that has been reduced to one year, but the principle is the same: be prepared for anything. Having a two-year supply is a storage space challenge for some, but I was never hindered by that restriction. IN fact, I continue to freeze dry, mainly because my annual garden produce exceeds what we can possibly eat fresh. I share it with our daughter's family, and others as the need arises. In fact, I have committed to my bishop [the leader of our ecclesiastical unit] that I would be willing to donate all, if needed, in case of emergency for someone else, such as losing a job. I Figure if I can help bess others in need, I, to will never want.

You raise some interesting points about eating-out habits. Eating out the equivalent of once a day, and more, is a complete waste of money that could, for example, be used to invest. People are not rich are angry at the rich, but don't do what rich people do. Silly in the extreme. Why complain? Join the club. Dues are simple. Invest on one's self instead of making restaurants, boat dealers, skidoo dealers, etc. rich. learn to cook, and rent the other stuff as needed, and invest. Simple plan. It's what I did; it works.

Update on my personal shopping: I no longer leave my home for any purpose, let alone shopping for groceries. This is due to my at-risk condition by age, although I have no pre-existing conditions of concern. I have just logged my 10th day in stay-home practice, and, fortunately, have no urgent need to change that decision because I have 3 years of food, 1 year of water, and about the same on all urgent non-food supply needs except for medicine. I am now negotiating with my doctor to allow an increased allowance for amount of medicine on hand since prescriptions are limited in scope.

Predicatably, last week's order to wear face masks in public has led to a sharp increase in bank robberies

Good one.

i live in a small town with only a pop of 13,000 so for me nearly everything is stocked except sanitizer, wipes, masks, and sometimes toilet paper 

There's been a run on gallons of water and alcohol, which is to be expected I suppose. 

A couples weeks back the mayor of Denver declared liquor stores and pot shops non-essential, causing panic buying on such an epic scale that the mayor rescinded the rule in under 2 hours.  Our phones were blowing up with emergency notifications and marijuana is now established in precedent as an essential service.  Churches and schools and meter maids = non-essential.  MJ=essential

I deem this "policy-making via id."

To be fair, churches and schools can be done online while MJ cant 

Define "food market". Define "food" first. If you define it as any solid substance that is to be consumed, then you might as well have medicines across the shelves.

What already ran out in supermarkets and drugstores is vitaminC. I walked all the city to find at least one but I couldn't find any.

I've noticed that.  Anything to do with colds and allergies is pretty much out.  I went looking for potassium and had to buy from the twice as expensive "herbal remedies" section.

Well, although vitaminC is largely used for colds, its main purpose is to boost inmune system. It could be very helpful to fight coronavirus, if you catch that of course.