I have worked in the grocery business for the last 32 years. Until this last year, we had a standard to meet of having 30 'out-of-stocks' per day for the grocery department, the ENTIRE grocery department. NOW we 150 out of stocks per aisle, it is unprecedented in my 3 decades in grocery. It's not just baby formula, it's about 10% of all of the products that we carry that we are having a hard time getting in these days. We have a store brand cereal on my aisle that had the box shrink from 15.2 ounces to 12.7 ounces and the price stayed at $2.99. If the prices aren't skyrocketing, the package size is shrinking by 10-20% without you noticing.
As for baby formula, it has always been one of the highest theft items in the store. It is a high dollar item that thieves steal and the re-sell them at swap meets and on the internet. My guess is a lot of the theft of those items is now occurring in the manufacturing and distribution process and doesn't even make it to the store in the first place. A case of 6 cans of baby formula is easily worth $100-$150.
It's difficult for me to believe this is not all by design. My advice to everyone is that if something is on sale, you'll use it and it has a long shelf life, buy extra and stock up.