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You may have noticed shortages of certain items at your local grocery store. Some of that is due to supply-chain disruption, which is delaying the transport of goods to retailers.

But some of it is also a return to the consumer stockpiling of food and household items that was prominent in the early days of the pandemic two years ago, The Wall Street Journal reports. The bulk buyers are worried about shortages and inflation. Inflation concerns make people want to buy goods before the next round of price increases.

The average annual increase for sales volume of food and beverages totaled 3% for 2020 and 2021, compared with an average of 0.5% during the previous decade, according to research firm IRI, The Journal reports. And average volume per unit sold rose 2.1% in 2021 from 2019, prior to the pandemic.

You might be tempted to call what people are doing now hoarding. But technically, hoarding is a psychological disorder. It includes an unwillingness to discard possessions and an accumulation of items extensive enough to make someone’s living space unusable What’s happening now doesn’t amount to hoarding disorder for most consumers, psychologists say.

“If it’s out of anxiety and fear that when I need this, I won’t be able to get it, it’s a valid fear,” Laurah Pastel Shames, a clinical social worker in Miami, told WPTV in West Palm Beach, Fla.

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That’s especially true “when we are kind of used to going to the supermarket and realizing the things that were easily able to be picked up are now a lot more difficult to find,” she said.

And consumer behavior may not be changing anytime soon, especially if Covid continues to strike.

“Consumers who experienced the harsh reality of pandemic shortages made permanent changes,” Bob Nolan, senior vice president of demand science at Conagra Brands  (CAG) – Get Conagra Brands, Inc. Report food company, told The Journal.

“They didn’t just stock up that week, but they said to themselves, even if subconsciously, ‘That’s not going to happen to me again.’”

To be sure, this is a difficult time for people who do suffer from hoarding disorder. The Philadelphia Inquirer described a woman who has gone overboard amid loneliness during the pandemic. She bought six pairs of shoes, purses and other items.

“I am a shopper and a hoarder,” the woman told The Inquirer. “I find reasons to keep things. The pandemic has absolutely made it worse. I used to be out. Now I’m home. It’s not like the hoarders on television. But it’s embarrassing.”