It probably has to do with stocking times would be my guess. (i.e. If you get one shipment a week, the day it arrives and ends up on the shelves you look full..

It probably has to do with stocking times would be my guess. (i.e. If you get one shipment a week, the day it arrives and ends up on the shelves you look full...by the end of the week, well, you've got almost nothing since you aren't able to get any reserves) https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/sep/26/venezuela-food-shortages-rich-country-cia https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matte... > But despite the severe scarcity Venezuelans are not going hungry. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has said that the Latin American nation more than halved malnutrition indices to less than 5% since Chávez came to power. It gives partial credit to the government-run network of food distribution chains known as Mercal, which delivers subsidised food in shops across the country. And yet food has gone missing, and queues outside food shops often wrap around the block. It also is probably the difference b/t government and non-government stores to a degree but the real culprit seems to be: > For Oliveros, an additional cause for the shortage of basic food staples is the decrease in agricultural production resulting from seized companies and land expropriations. "More than 3m hectares were expropriated during 2004-2010. That and overvalued exchange rate destroyed agriculture. It's cheaper to import than it is to produce. That's a perverse model that kills off any productivity," he says. They destroyed their agricultural system years ago and the government just can't afford to keep spending like they used to with the oil prices where they are now.