I learned the grocery business the way most grocers do: by working in one. My family ran neighborhood supermarkets in New Orleans for generations, and I learned early that a central point of a grocer’s job is to say yes. Yes, we carry it. Yes, we’ll order it. Yes, it will be on the shelf Thursday.

Independent grocers all over the country are having to say no more often now, and not because anything is scarce. They are saying it because somebody else has already claimed the product.