I just bought a portable bidet, bog roll issue solved. Used it today, can recommend
Yeah, they're great eh. I've got one too.
As ever, the panic buying is fuelled by the media(and this thread)
Every day the message is repeated throughout the day that supermarkets are running out of stuff, fighting in the aisles, people can't get basic essentials, nurses crying on the telly etc. It's no wonder that the response to that is to panic buy really. Human nature innit.
Don't know what the answer is as the news sure as hell ain't going to stop pushing the message home.
Luckily when I went, there was still plenty of balsamic glaze.
😐 Hopefully we come back to some normality in the coming weeks.
I was dreading a trip to Waitrose this morning having seen the pictures of queues and fighting. Turned out there were more staff than customers in the shop and the shortages were incredibly specific - pasta, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, eggs, milk limited to 1 per customer, flour - but everything else available. I find the milk one very odd - the cows are still producing it at the same rate so there isn’t a shortage in supply, it doesn’t keep so there’s no point in stockpiling, what on earth are people doing with it?
Pickled onions none not a single jar in Sainsburys. 🤷🏻♂️
Pickled onions none not a single jar in Sainsburys. 🤷🏻♂️
There are some upsides then! 😀🤮
I find the milk one very odd
I assume the 'logic' is it requires a good supply chain to be maintained to keep farm to dairy and dairy to supermarket deliveries going, can't really stockpile it for long.
It's flour that seems more bizarre to me, is everyone now making cakes and pies because canned goods are hard to find? Flour lasts ages but it's not like rice & pasta you can just eat it if things really go to shit. It didn't even seem to be bread flour affected so it's not like it's caused by people reverting to making their own bread as off the shelf loaves are in short supply.
it doesn’t keep so there’s no point in stockpiling, what on earth are people doing with it?
Freezing it I assume - we usually have an emergency bottle in the freezer in case we run out between our normal weekly shop and, with the WFH and our children being off school now, we had to break out the emergency bottle just this morning so I could have a decent latte.
We bought flour for the first time in ages. As we are working from home we have time to do some baking. We are also using more of things like milk and bog roll than we would if we were both out all day.
Having large numbers of people suddenly working from home and not eating out or using takeaways is going to have an impact on shopping habits. Although I appreciate it is only a small part of the problem.
didn’t even seem to be bread flour affected so it’s not like it’s caused by people reverting to making their own bread
Come again ? Are you saying you cannot make bread with regular flour ?
Freezing it I assume – we usually have an emergency bottle in the freezer in case we run out between our normal weekly shop
Presumably people are doing this with the double quantities of fresh veg that they've bought this week. This will be dragged out of the freezer in a few weeks, turn to mush and be binned. Or is everyone at home dicing, parboiling and bagging up?
I generally buy as and when needed but have done some limited topping up recently - two local farm shops have been great other than their butchers having no chicken either whole or bits.
Did some shopping for elder son today; he works away and his partner c/w baby has been with her parents in B/ham so got most of theirs from farm shops then went to Waitrose for few outstanding bits.
Good news and bad news; bad first - as you would expect...bog roll, disinfectant, cleaning wipes, pasta, rice, tinned toms, fresh veg completely stripped.
Good news - the locusts clearly don't fancy artisan olives, squid and octopus in salsa negra, tinned confit duck legs, escargots, haggis or dates.
My unscientific view from Edinburgh is that Waitrose suffers far more badly from panic buying (or at least their shelves empty more quickly) I don't know if this just shows that the affluent have the readies to buy more stuff or whether there is a deeper sociological meaning.
I think it is a middle & upper class (who can afford it) issue, IMO.
I also think that it is partly the 20-40% of meals in the UK that were take out or eat out, more being home cooked by people with time in thier hands, so using more fresh ingredients.
Plus some utterly selfish individuals.
The webcam that I want to buy has all been sold out all over ... 😒
Our Waitrose had baked beans but no tinned toms, tinned beans very low. Lentils - none!! Arborio rice - none. Demonstrates the menus put on by Jocasta.
An old guy gazing at the empty shelves said "I was in the war and it wasn't this bad".
"Yes", said I, "but this time no-ones dropping bombs".
Spare a thought for those of us self-isolating and unable to even decide whether to panic buy or not.
One of wife's friends picked up a few bits for us yesterday afternoon.
Arrived with a small loaf of ****ing Nimble bread. For a family of four.
All that was left apparently.
“We’re British and won two world wars, so this doesn’t apply to is plucky Brits.”😕
Richard Osman nailed that one.
People still congregating in busy spaces saying ‘it’s the Dunkirk sprit’, need to understand that in this scenario they’re actually being the Luftwaffe.
Today’s panic buy purchases:
24 cans of Purity beer, bought at cost as the pub was shutting and he wanted it out the door.
6 pints of takeaway beer from the local brewery.
1 sourdough loaf.
4 cakes.
Solid afternoons work that was.
An old guy gazing at the empty shelves said “I was in the war and it wasn’t this bad”.
“Yes”, said I, “but this time no-ones dropping bombs”.
Was it meant to make him feel better about the situation. Please let him have seen the sliver of funny side because it doesn't read very well how you have written it.
He smiled.
I'm glad because it read quite callous.
I realise tone is everything though and you don't get it on text.
Speaking of freezers, Argos only have 3 chest freezers available at time of writing.
That isn't the local Argos, that's a national search
https://www.argos.co.uk/browse/appliances/fridges-and-freezers/freezers/c:29618/type:chest-freezers/
Currys have none
andy - so many pricks out there.
No doubt those ignorant and smug arses who've been panic buying freezers don't give a flying one about anyone else.
Guaranteed they haven't asked neighbours if they're ok or need any help.
I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.
May they rot in hell.
Hurray, managed to get a pack of bog roll this morning, so I treated myself to some lentils.
andy – so many pricks out there.
No doubt those ignorant and smug arses who’ve been panic buying freezers don’t give a flying one about anyone else.
Guaranteed they haven’t asked neighbours if they’re ok or need any help.
I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.
May they rot in hell.
Agreed!
Surely things must quieten down soon? Once you’ve filled one garage with toilet roll, pasta and paracetamol, you don’t need a second garage full!?
Local shops.
Walked to local coop
Plenty bread milk eggs only things missing I wanted were pasta or flour to make pasta.
Plenty fruit veg and meat....didnt buy any as we don't need
Supermarkets have been wiped out by 9 am all week
Surely things must quieten down soon? Once you’ve filled one garage with toilet roll, pasta and paracetamol, you don’t need a second garage full!?
It is not just toilet roll and pasta though and as people's food runs out and they realise you can't live on pasta and toilet roll they will continue to panic buy.
There should be rationing at shops. Very easy to do with online shop as can be controlled to one delivery per household per week and only one of each item. Bit harder with supermarkets so would need a ration book approach I suppose otherwise people could go to a different supermarket many times a day.
My sister works in the local small village Co-Op.One middle aged ‘lady’ at the counter had, amongst other things, 5 containers of baby milk powder, essentially clearing half the days stock of this item. My sister, who has young children herself asked whether the powder was for her or a relatives child and how old they were. The reply was ‘oh no, its for our tea and coffee when the milk supplies run out’. My sister has now been temporarily removed from her customer facing role as telling a customer that they are a wretched ignorant selfish see you next Tuesday is not an appropriate response.
I’m torn between my natural see the best in everybody leanings and my hope that these type of people are indeed wiped out by this virus.....☹️
Local Aldi had everything we needed this morning except macho hand moisturizer - all this extra hand washing is ruining them - skimmed milk, tinned veg/baked beans and pain au chocolat. Everyone calm, sensible, courteous and good natured.
Local farm shop looked busy as well, though it is also home to the village microbrewery
Formula milk should be on production of the red book. Same way you get Calpol on minor ailments
Marks and Spencer fully stocked in Knaresborough.
Have to be honest, if I saw someone with a trolley full of toilet rolls in the car park, I'd just take one straight out of their trolley and would encourage others to do the same.
My mum is upset because she's severely coeliac and people are buying all the gluten free items because the normal stuff is sold out.
Hurray, managed to get a pack of bog roll this morning, so I treated myself to some lentils.
If you’re anything like my vegetarian wife I’d say you’re in negative equity there.
I see the forced closure of pubs and bars has had an immediate effect - the beer and wine shelves and cooler in our local Co-op were 3/4 empty. No panic buying honest.
Surely things must quieten down soon?
I hope so, we're in the 3 months of self isolation club due to my being immunocompromised. Local shops having produce isn't so useful when you're stuck relying on delivery and the likes of Tesco having no delivery slots in the diary is not ideal!
@chvck - if you are within 40 miles of stevenage then send me a message and I will bring you stuff
Thanks for the offer @grahamt1980, no where near though. I've also managed to bag a delivery slot with Tesco for the 30th so we'll be reet so long as they have stuff back on the site by then.
Reassuring to know that there are people out there who will help though 🙂
Running seriously low on chocolate now, friends have been dropping off bread, eggs & milk but my wife won't ask them to pick me up some nice 70% cocoa.
🙁
I can't remember all the way back through this thread, is there anyone actually admitting to panic buying or stockpiling?
Someone must be doing it all, if its anyone reading this then you are a terrible terrible person.
Yep - johndoh said we were all thick for holding off.
my mum saw a woman in Aldi yesterday being told to put 2 of the 4 loaves she had back.
"but I need to feed the birds"
FFS
Bit of a spending spree/panic buy over the past couple days for myself - all stuff i consider essential to the current situation, a few cases of nice beer from vocation brewery thanks to their 20% discount and i needed a new iPad as my old-old iPad mini is getting a bit laggy so i bought an iPad pro 11" (apple refurb store), apple pencil 2 and a steel series nimbus controller - and while i was out on the bike today i stopped off and bought 4 boxes of eggs from my local farm road end so i guess thats me set for the full lockdown thats coming for us all.
See you all on the other side
Bit of morale today, frozen pasties! I'm 200miles away from my family as it, might as well have come home comforts.
Lots of local businesses setting up meat/veg boxes and pubs/restaurants doing take out, will be looking to use those in the coming weeks.
chvck
If you do get stuck shout out on here. someone will live close enough to help out.
trail_rat
MemberCome again ? Are you saying you cannot make bread with regular flour ?
1. Define regular flour.
2. You can make "Bread" of sorts with most flours but don't expect it to be as you wanted.
Our holiday was cancelled so we had no food in the house as we should be away, last week before the panic buying started we did our usual big shop including a load of meals we cook up for the freezer due to shift working. We cooked it all up tonight, if it comes to it we can supply our elderly neighbours with pre-cooked chilli, meatballs and sausage casserole for a couple of days.
So I’ve not been to the supermarket all week and I’m not looking forward to it. We’re running a bit low on a couple of bits, I’m hoping the small local shops/grocers will have what we need.
We found some yeast in the back of the cupboard this evening so we’re going to try and make bread tomorrow.... I’m not expecting it to go that well.
Panic bought a turbo, in swift before the lock 😉
