Panic buying

[ejstubbs]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Speaking of off-licences, I heard yesterday from a contact who deals with such things that the supermarket chains are showing substantially increased transaction totals, ie individual customers spending more, on the order of 20% in lower transaction ranges. It hasn’t occurred to me that they would be taking up the off-licence and licence trade sales, but people certainly haven’t stopped buying beer and alcohol. 

 

Did your contact's figures specifically show that alcohol purchases had increased, or just overall shopping basket totals?  I ask because I've noticed that we've been spending a tad more on groceries and household consumables recently, but I think in our case that's because we're having to substitute more expensive alternatives for some products we used to buy that seem to be in short or fluctuating supply just now.

 

Someone mentioned crunchy peanut butter: the own-brand we used to buy regularly disappeared from the shelves during the real panic buying phase and has never reliably reappeared.  In its place we have to buy a significantly more expensive branded product.  We did by chance find a very acceptable alternative in Aldi a while back which was very similar to the branded alternative but about half the price.  However, we don't usually shop in Aldi and I do feel that going from shop to shop to find exactly what you want at a price that you like goes somewhat against the spirit if not the words of the lockdown regulations & guidance.

 

The same thing has happened with our regular choice of breakfast cereal: again, the branded alternative is noticeably more costly.

 

In summary: I suspect that a lot of folks are having to pay a bit more for what they want due to ongoing random shortages and not being or feeling able to shop around on price.

[Gwiwer]

6 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

I suspect that a lot of folks are having to pay a bit more for what they want

Definitely.  At a casual glance it's cost us around £250 extra across what - eight, nine weeks?  That's for two; there's been no difference on the pet side of things.  

[petethemole]

As a pensioner with two "economically inactive" mouths to feed, shopping around is Essential, and I'm doing it by bus.  But I do it by going to different stores each day rather than in one trip out.  Mrs mole is disabled and will rarely drive to do the food/grocery shop in normal times and also refuses to queue.  Currently unemployed son (20) has autism and although he can take a list to (say) Sainsbury's and get what's available, his bus fare would be extra whereas I've got an old git's pass.  The only noticeable rise in shopping costs is where actual prices are rising.  But I'm not buying books from charity shops, so I save there.

[cctransuk]

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

Forget Kittow’s pasties....Mary’s are far superior 

 

We've been here before, haven't we? (Though it may have been in the Hayle Quay thread).

 

If perfection in Cornish pasties is your thing, it has to be Philps of Hayle - and they do mail order; https://www.philpspasties.co.uk/shop/pasties

 

Unfortunately, they're another temporary victim of Covid-19.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[melmerby]

49 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

 

 

Someone mentioned crunchy peanut butter: the own-brand we used to buy regularly disappeared from the shelves during the real panic buying phase and has never reliably reappeared.  In its place we have to buy a significantly more expensive branded product.  We did by chance find a very acceptable alternative in Aldi a while back which was very similar to the branded alternative but about half the price. 

I always buy Meridian in 1kg tubs, none of the supermarket own brands meet my expectation of peanut butter made with 100% peanuts.

They all have sugar or salt (or both) plus other unwanted additives.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

Definitely.  At a casual glance it's cost us around £250 extra across what - eight, nine weeks?  That's for two; there's been no difference on the pet side of things.  

 

Our weekly shop has definitely increased in cost, and larger sizes and own-brand versions are in short supply. I do notice that bottled beer, tinned beer and fluorescent-coloured alcopops seem to be selling rapidly. 

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

 

 

Someone mentioned crunchy peanut butter: the own-brand we used to buy regularly disappeared from the shelves during the real panic buying phase and has never reliably reappeared.  In its place we have to buy a significantly more expensive branded product.  We did by chance find a very acceptable alternative in Aldi a while back which was very similar to the branded alternative but about half the price.  However, we don't usually shop in Aldi and I do feel that going from shop to shop to find exactly what you want at a price that you like goes somewhat against the spirit if not the words of the lockdown regulations & guidance.

 

The same thing has happened with our regular choice of breakfast cereal: again, the branded alternative is noticeably more costly.

 

 

It was I, yes the ASDA peanut butter has gone completely with just expensive (IMO inferior tasting) "designer brands"........very annoying as we do like our peanut butter, the ALDI peanut better is the one we normally buy actually preferring the taste to much else, but of course we can no longer buy in ALDI, same goes for our regular cereal from ALDI a very nice Cinamon wheaty stuff, again nicer than the Nestle alternative.

 

Ho hum the sacrifices we have to make.....

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

 

 I suspect that a lot of folks are having to pay a bit more for what they want due to ongoing random shortages and not being or feeling able to shop around on price.

 

Don't go there......all we have had to buy from apart from one delivery from Waitrose early on is our local Quayside (farm) shop, we used to occasionally go in there to buy a few "special" items but now we have been buying from them (as they have been delivering, and very good they are too) on a regular more than weekly basis on average I dread to think what the cost is comapared, so we are not comparing, just thankful we could get our essentials and a bit more.

[melmerby]

2 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

It was I, yes the ASDA peanut butter has gone completely with just expensive (IMO inferior tasting) "designer brands"........very annoying as we do like our peanut butter, the ALDI peanut better is the one we normally buy actually preferring the taste to much else, but of course we can no longer buy in ALDI, same goes for our regular cereal from ALDI a very nice Cinamon wheaty stuff, again nicer than the Nestle alternative.

 

Ho hum the sacrifices we have to make.....

Asda Crunchy Peanut butter: Peanuts (94%), Peanut Oil, Sugar, Palm Oil, Sea Salt (BTW still available at my Asda!)

How can you? it's rubbish, I like my Peanut Butter to taste of Peanuts not Palm Oil & Sugar.

 

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

We've been here before, haven't we? (Though it may have been in the Hayle Quay thread).

 

If perfection in Cornish pasties is your thing, it has to be Philps of Hayle - and they do mail order; https://www.philpspasties.co.uk/shop/pasties

 

 

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

John......not going there....the location or the debate 

[boxbrownie]

And definitely not mentioning Sarah's Pasties in Looe..............a legend 

[John M Upton]

Quite a few retailers have snuck through a few cheeky price increases on the QT when they thought I wasn't looking.

 

Self raising flour has at last resurfaced though, M&S in Chichester has loads of it.

[Joseph_Pestell]

36 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Asda Crunchy Peanut butter: Peanuts (94%), Peanut Oil, Sugar, Palm Oil, Sea Salt (BTW still available at my Asda!)

How can you? it's rubbish, I like my Peanut Butter to taste of Peanuts not Palm Oil & Sugar.

 

 

While disapproving of Palm Oil, 94%+ is pretty good by comparison with most products.

 

But if it were 0.94%, I would still be tasting the peanuts and not liking it.

[melmerby]

Looks like some panic buying has subsided.

I ordered some stuff from Rapid Online at the weekend (including IPA - they had loads) was warned that deliveries times are extended due to the extra business and it arrived today.

Excellent service, little different to normal.

[ejstubbs]

2 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

While disapproving of Palm Oil

 

As David Attenborough pointed out in his latest series, palm oil is actually one of the most efficient ways to produce edible oils in terms of land used per litre of oil produced.  The problem is that this means that the RoI can appear very attractive, so the world and his dog piled in to the business by cultivating land which was previously wild (and therefore cheap to buy, improving the RoI even more).  That's actually led to oversupply, which is one reason why palm oil is now so ubiquitous in processed foods - because it's so cheap.  Palm oil production is actually being scaled back in some places because the returns aren't really there any more.  Unfortunately, though, the damage has already been done.

 

Arguably, if existing producers had simply switched to growing oil palm on their already cultivated land then the result in terms of increased quantity of foodstuff produced per hectare would have been more or less the same, without destroying wild environments in the process.  More robust/more effectively enforced protections on uncultivated land might also have helped.  But governments in developing countries often don't want to end up being regarded as depriving their citizens of the opportunity to earn a dollar.

[Gwiwer]

What matters just as much as preserving orang-utan habitat rather than stripping their forests to produce palm oil is that the likes of Toblerone and Nutella now claim to use entirely "responsibly sourced" palm oil.  Well it matters to those of us with a certain liking ..... 

 

Meanwhile there has been no evidence of panic-buying either of those products around here.  Cheaper chocolate-fixes are available

[melmerby]

Did my "final" revision of my Asda order at 9:45 (10:00pm cut off) this evening for tomorrow's delivery and yet again Basmati rice had got knocked off, so went back in before completing the order and manage to add some Easy Cook Basmati, the only type that was available, also pasta was very, very limited one size only available and many options still OOS.

Still absolutely no Hand Wash available.

[adb968008]

Ive noticed the panic buying subsided, and aside of Chicken, Eggs and Cleaning produce, finally everything is back to normal in our area.

 

Though weve pivoted away from Supermarkets, Ive seen some horrendous queues around Zone5’s retailers... They arent designed for everyone in the locality working from home, eating at home, it is designed more of just a “few” working from home and the rest eat in the city/school/restaurant largely by passing the local supermarkets.. they simply dont have space, for people or stock, the local supermarket here actually has trailers in the car park with extra stock in it, as they lack the storeroom space, they are constantly replenishing, though at least now thats something they can do.

 

They are overwhelmed, with stories of 3 hour shopping trips, online delivery is no chance still here, its booked out.

Weve found a good butcher, farm shop, Polish shop and a Turkish shop, theyve catered to everything. Were also cooking from raw ingredients much much more. The Turkish shop is a life saver, being by the train station they were used to “stack it high” for those going home at night, now that business has gone, they are doing a good trade all day long instead.. but to get the best you need to go early, where as before you went late.

 

Weve only tried ordering online takeaway twice, both times resulted in failure, whilst theres moped drivers everywhere Justeat /Uber just cant get enough of them.

 

In short weve all adapted in our locality, the local shops more than ever are benefitting, one is even using the currently closed pub as an extension of its store,. Though a shopping trip is always >1hour jaunt, where ever you go, if your selling food on the local high street there laughing right now.

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by adb968008

[big jim]

We now do one big shop a week in Tesco, today however we needed some extras so popped into Aldi on the retail

park in crewe and fair dos it was one of the most efficient well organised shops we’ve done, one queue for all tills, called forward, plastic screens between checkouts and the usual one protecting the staff, super quick service from then, very impressed 

 

passed the newly re-opened KFC too, queue right round the car park to get in there!  

[rockershovel]

Visited Tesco yesterday, mostly to visit Vision Express (who are inside) but also picked up a few items. Lots of soft fruit, very cheap, at the moment. Making the most of it. 

 

Ocado were completely OOS on frozen green vegetables, have been for the last two deliveries, but Tesco had plenty so I bought some. 

 

No real crowds, inside or outside. Plastic screens now erected at checkouts. Those swipe-while-you-shop handsets seem to be overtaking the self-serve checkouts. 

[ejstubbs]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Those swipe-while-you-shop handsets seem to be overtaking the self-serve checkouts. 

 

They used to have a system like that at one of our local Sainsbury's, many years ago now.  It worked quite well.  You still had to go through a checkout to pay (IIRC there was a dedicated checkout for scan-as-you-go customers) but unless the system decided to spot-check you, all they did was verify your age and take the money.  It was much better than going through a recalcitrant self-checkout and having to be age-verified at an unpredictable point in the process IMO.  For some reason it never really took off and they binned the system.  I think it was before smartphones became so ubiquitous and people weren't as used to handling gadgets.

 

More recently they've rolled out a similar kind of system where you use you mobile to scan the products.  I've tried it and it's horrible!  Your average mobile phone is far from ergonomically efficient for scanning stuff as you put it in to your bags compared to a trigger-based device. The app also stops working in any mobile data/wifi black spots within the store.  Basically, it's rubbish.  It takes twice as long to just pick your items off the shelves and get them successfully scanned (barcode scanning using the phone camera - mine is 12mp so should be OK - seems to be disappointingly unreliable) and you still have to go through - and queue for - the self-service checkout.  A big fat implementation fail IMO: a good idea on paper but sooooo badly thought through.  Their old system worked well but was introduced at the wrong time to get traction with the customers.  The new system is just bad - though I suspect some customers will use it anyway 'coz it's all on your phone innit.

 

I believe Tesco have a system which uses dedicated handsets, but we don't shop there often (and I don't think our local store has it anyway).

[jcm@gwr]

All our major supermarkets have them (2 x Tesco, 2 x Sainsburys, + 1 x Asda)

and all have dedicated checkouts for them too, seem to be popular.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

27 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

...I believe Tesco have a system which uses dedicated handsets, but we don't shop there often (and I don't think our local store has it anyway).

It does, and it works in the hands of the competent. But - as observed before lockdown - in the hands of those who are differently competent it's a terminal disaster. The indecisive who change their shopping list half way around, those who pointed it at the wrong item in the trolley and bought it again, those that put it down in the freezer and lose it, are a few I have seen. And then there's the famous carrots problem for loose fruit and veg.

 

Should really be mounted on the trolley or basket to register everything as it goes into the 'purchased' zone, and auto delete if the item is removed while in the store area. Needs improvement if it is to become the standard method.

[melmerby]

The scan as you go systems seem to be quite common now, although when the social distancing started the local Sainsburys stopped all forms of customers self checking out their purchases, everyone had to go through a manned till.

I haven't been since so don't know what the current situation is

[big jim]

I’ve never had issues with the handsets, so much easier to get in get out and get gone

 

the only problem I’ve had in the past is ideally you should be packing your bags in the trolley as you go round so when you get to the tills and paid your all ready to load straight into the car, the times I’ve done that I’ve been chosen for a random item check so the assistant has to them go rummaging through the packed bags to scan certain items on the random checklist so now we don’t bother and pack it when we get to the car 

 

at the moment Sainsbury’s are losing out on our weekly shop because of their one person per trip policy, quite simply I can’t be trusted to shop on my own as I’ll just by junk and my wife if she goes on her own buys healthy stuff, going to Tesco together is a compromise as I get away with a certain amount of junk and she tops up with the healthy stuff 

 

This was me after the first solo shop after lockdown