Shortages at mainland grocery stores are being seen to a lesser extent in Hawaii.

Supply chain issues have left many mainland grocery shelves with uneven inventories as COVID-19 upended several agriculture and retail sectors. The problem has been exacerbated by the recent rapid spread of the omicron variant and extreme weather in parts of the country.

For stores in Hawaii, where new daily COVID-19 cases counts have climbed with the spread of the omicron, goods are generally available — but some aisles have sections of bare shelving.

“Like many other retailers in Hawaii and on the mainland, we have been impacted by various supply chain issues resulting from the pandemic, weather, port delays, manufacture shutdowns, vendor shortages” and other snags, Sheryl Toda, spokeswoman for Foodland, said in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Hit particularly hard, Toda said, are categories like pet food, possibly because of a shortage of aluminum cans.

A plastic bottle shortage has also caused supply issues for sports drinks, she said. Grocery store sections for water bottles — not just at Foodland, but at Times Supermarket and others stores in the Honolulu area — are thinly stocked relative to other sections of the stores.

Foodland is still well supplied on staple items like bread, milk, eggs and toilet paper, Toda said.

As more workers along the supply chain miss work due to COVID-19 infection or exposure, the movement of goods throughout the country has slowed.

Tina Yamaki, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii, noted how the virus is affecting truck drivers, who are a critical link in the supply chain.

“They were out sick, especially on the mainland. So, to get the product to the docks to be shipped to Hawaii, that’s going to take a longer time because you don’t have as many drivers,” Yamaki said.

The American Trucking Association said in October that the U.S. was short an estimated 80,000 drivers, a historic high.

Severe winter weather has also affected grocery store supplies around the country.

Grocery industry executive Chris Borden said weather delays generally have the biggest impact on supplies coming to Hawaii, but they have remained consistent during the pandemic.

“I would say that’s probably the biggest impact, but … it’s probably status quo,” Borden said.

Some of the empty shelves at some supermarkets could be attributed to an uptick in holiday season sales, but primarily because of the recovering tourism industry, Borden said.

“The biggest reason is tourism,” Borden said, noting that a year earlier Hawaii was still dealing with a shut-down of tourism.

In early 2021, tighter COVID-19 travel restrictions in Hawaii were in place, and the availability of vaccines was not yet widespread. During 2020, tourism flatlined for much of the year due to public health restrictions.

Yamaki noted it’s not just grocery stores that are still feeling the economic impacts from the coronavirus.

“It’s everybody. Nobody has been really spared,” Yamaki said. “It affects different retailers in different ways.”