Having worked at Trader Joes for three years, I know that each store orders depending on their customers’ past buying habits. If their customers buy 100 packages of kiwi a week, they ensure they have roughly those 100 packages, each week, unless they notice an unusual demand (like with cranberries over Thanksgiving time, for example, which has its own set of ordering criteria) So, if those same people realize they will have ONE grocery shopping trip in the next two weeks (due to the blizzard, for example) they will buy the same amount of kiwi they usually do, but all in one trip instead of 2 or 3. Trader Joes only has truck deliveries X number of times per week, so their supply of kiwis won’t be in until next week (or later, because of the storm) so that’s why we see bare shelves — not only for kiwis, but for all foods/drink we see flying off of shelves in these types of situations.

It’s humorous to think that people suddenly craved kiwis they didn’t normally buy because of a snow storm, but it’s entirely inaccurate.