A Grape-Nuts shortage? Say it ain't so!

First it was disinfectant and hand sanitizer.

Then there was a run on toilet paper, and for a while it was difficult to find N-95 masks and certain other pieces of personal protective equipment.

Among other things, we've had shortages of building supplies (I know from experience, having just gone through a major home renovation), vaccines and, in some cases, patience.

There have been all kinds of product and material shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly caused by supply chain interruptions and shifting consumer needs.

The latest shortage? Believe it or not, it's Grape-Nuts cereal.

"We are currently experiencing a product shortage where we are not able to fill orders for this item due to adjustments in our production schedule and production availability," according to a message I found Friday on the Grape-Nuts website, www.grapenuts.com (yes, the cereal has its own website). "We expect this product to be back on most store shelves sometime in March 2021."

It seems the ready-to-eat cereal market in the United States had been shrinking by as much as 2% annually from 2015 through 2019. However, when the pandemic hit last year, people began spending more time at home and, in the process, started eating more breakfast, including cereal. The overall ready-to-eat cereal market grew almost 20% to about $10.6 billion from 2019 to 2020.

I called Paul Simon (not the singer but the senior communications specialist with Schnuck Markets Inc. in St. Louis) to talk about the cereal aisles at the company's supermarkets in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, including the one on South Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau.

Paul checked with the company's product manager as well as the company's Cape store and told me there was "good news and bad news" on the Grape-Nuts front.

"Yes, we are seeing a shortage, specifically of the 20.5-ounce boxes of Grape-Nuts," he said. "But the good news is the larger 29-ounce boxes are still on the shelf in Cape Girardeau."

(That conversation was Friday, but when I visited the Cape Girardeau Schnucks on Sunday, there were no 29-ounce boxes on the shelf, either.)

By they way, although the cereal is called "Grape-Nuts," it's mostly wheat and barley and contains neither grapes nor nuts. It's been around since C.W. Post came up with the recipe in 1897, which has remained largely unchanged over the past 124 years.

Advertisers hope to 'score' next weekend

"Mean" Joe Greene reportedly chugged 17 bottles of Coca-Cola during the filming of this iconic television commercial, which aired during Super Bowl XIV in 1980. A 30-second commercial during next weekend's Super Bowl will reportedly cost national advertisers $5.6 million.

Where were you Jan. 15, 1967?

Okay, many of you weren't even born then, but I was an 11-year-old sixth grader in Chester, Illinois, and on that particular Sunday afternoon, I was in our family room watching the first "AFL-NFL World Championship Game" (it wouldn't be called the "Super Bowl" until sometime after that) on our 25-inch black-and-white console TV. (As a side note, it wasn't until that year our family would upgrade to a color television in time for the '67 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox, but I digress.)

I don't recall much about the football game that day between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, but I do remember the picture was clearer on the CBS affiliate, KFVS12 out of Cape Girardeau, than it was on KSD, Channel 5, the NBC affiliate in St. Louis. It was the only Super Bowl to be simulcast in the United States by two networks as games played by teams in the National Football League were televised by CBS and NBC had rights to broadcast American Football League games. (The leagues subsequently united under the NFL banner with NFC and AFC conferences.)

Among the miscellaneous facts associated with that first championship game were Green Bay won, 35-10; the halftime show featured Al Hirt and marching bands from the University of Arizona and Grambling State University; and a 30-second ad cost a whopping $40,000 (actually, some sources say $37,500, while others quote $42,500, so I split the difference).

Over the years, Super Bowl advertising (and, let's face it, the Super Bowl is really a four-hour advertising platform with a football game wedged between commercial breaks) has become as big a viewing draw as the game itself. A week from today, casual fans might not remember who won Sunday's tilt between the Chiefs and the Buccaneers, but they'll recall what ads were their favorites and which ones missed the mark.

That's why national advertisers will shell out $5.6 million for a 30-second opportunity next weekend to place their products in front of more than 100 million pairs of eyes. That comes out to $186,666 a second.

Many viewers couldn't care less about the game and only tune in to watch iconic commercials such as the one that aired during Super Bowl XIV, in which a kid offers "Mean" Joe Greene a Coke and receives Joe's sweaty, game-worn jersey in return. That was more than 40 years ago, but you still remember it, right?

Based on what I've read, this year's Super Bowl commercials will be a little "different" because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some advertisers, who otherwise would have used humor to convey their marketing message, will instead spend their Super Bowl advertising budget on "toned down" commercials that will acknowledge the ongoing health crisis.

Still others, such as Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola, will reportedly redirect the millions they would have spent on Super Bowl advertising toward pandemic relief efforts. (It will be the first Super Bowl in 37 years without an in-game Budweiser ad.)

Regardless, I'd like to know which ads during the game score with you and why. You can email me, jwolz@semissourian.com, and tell me which ads you liked best (as well as which ones you liked the least); I'll include some of your comments in a follow-up column in a couple of weeks.

'Just Walk Away Renee'

You may remember The Left Banke singing those lyrics in the pop band's '60s hit "Walk Away Renee."

I wouldn't be surprised if that tune was on Renee Shandy's mind as she "walked away" from Southeast Hospital a few weeks ago, retiring after nearly 38 years in the hospital's marketing and web services department.

Renee joined Southeast in early 1983 as the secretary/receptionist of what was then the hospital's public relations office. Among her first duties were giving hospital tours to school children, leading "Mr. Yuk" poison-prevention programs, and editing InforMed, the hospital's employee newsletter.

After nearly four decades, during which she edited (by her count) 1,075 editions of InforMed, she retired in late December from her position as Southeast's senior graphic designer.

Renee and I were work colleagues from 2000 through 2011, when, in a previous career, I was the hospital's marketing campaign coordinator and I can honestly say there was never a day when Renee wasn't willing to tackle any crazy or seemingly impossible task thrown at her.

For the purposes of this column, I asked her to tell me how her job changed over the years and she told me how, in 1988, "the angels sang" when the hospital purchased a primitive (by today's standards) Macintosh Plus desktop publishing computer. "I took to that nine-inch monochrome screen like a squirrel to a pecan tree and haven't looked back," she said.

Over the years, her publications and other projects on behalf of the hospital won more than a dozen awards from the Missouri Hospital Association.

She also won admiration and friendship from the Southeast Hospital family.

Happy retirement, Renee!

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