Panic buying

[newbryford]

Let the panic buying of camping equipment commence.

[eastglosmog]

Looks like the Aussies are going into panic buying toilet roll mode again: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-51731422

[Paul.Uni]

1 minute ago, eastglosmog said:

Looks like the Aussies are going into panic buying toilet roll mode again: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-51731422

That is from March.

[melmerby]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-53196525

 

https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/panic-buying-returns-to-australia-following-spike-in-coronavirus-cases-c-1120668

Edited June 26, 2020 by melmerby

[monkeysarefun]

Yes its ridiculous .

 

Theres been 4 or 5 days of 30 or so daily new cases in a cluster of suburbs in Melbourne, and so 1000km away my local supermarkets run out of toilet paper...

Edited June 26, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[zarniwhoop]

I just wish we could get back to normal supplies of the common brands of flour (last week my local Tesco had loads of white flour, mostly in large packages, but supplies of the brands/variants I like (not usually available at Tesco) still seem to be very patchy. Usually I use Dove's wholemeal for my main sourdoughs, and their wholemeal rye for my rye sourdoughs. A couple of weeks ago Sainsburys had Doves wholemeal, but I'd got an unopened packet.  Now, none of either (and no wholemeal rye at all, although I did get some wholemeal khorasan which helps eke out the rye for breakfast).

 

On the scale of things, a minor problem, but it suggests that it will be a long time until supplies get back to normal. Hope everyone who has to self-isolate will have adequate supplies.

[boxbrownie]

6 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

I just wish we could get back to normal supplies of the common brands of flour (last week my local Tesco had loads of white flour, mostly in large packages, but supplies of the brands/variants I like (not usually available at Tesco) still seem to be very patchy. Usually I use Dove's wholemeal for my main sourdoughs, and their wholemeal rye for my rye sourdoughs. A couple of weeks ago Sainsburys had Doves wholemeal, but I'd got an unopened packet.  Now, none of either (and no wholemeal rye at all, although I did get some wholemeal khorasan which helps eke out the rye for breakfast).

 

On the scale of things, a minor problem, but it suggests that it will be a long time until supplies get back to normal. Hope everyone who has to self-isolate will have adequate supplies.

We have been ordering ours direct from Marriages, no issues at all apart from them being in 16kg sacks, but then even they don’t last very long at the rate we eat sourdough.

[ejstubbs]

10 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

suggests that it will be a long time until supplies get back to normal.

 

AIUI it's not the flour that's in short supply, but the equipment for bagging it in retail-sized bags.  Hence people are having comparatively little difficulty sourcing direct from mils in 16kg bags (I've done it myself), but once the 0.5-1.5kg bags are gone from the supermarket shelves they take a while to get re-stocked - and then rapidly get snapped up again when they do reappear.

 

That said, the flour shelves in my local Morrisons were groaning with own-brand plain and self raising all last week, so maybe that's one retailer who's got their act together.  The Sainsbury's I frequent has had reliable if not bountiful supplies of various types of bread flours e.g. Allinsons Country Grain and Carr's wholemeal.  So, like with many other items which are in sporadic supply at the moment (Sainsbury's organic peanut butter, I'm looking at you) one solution is not to be quite so picky about which product you buy (Morrisons 100% peanuts peanut butter proving to be a very acceptable alternative).

 

More of a problem, at least for those of us who like to make our own bread but who CBA with sourdough, is the disappearance of dried yeast.  The Sainsbury's I go to sometimes has the boxes of 7g sachets but I prefer to get 100g packets and measure out the quantity I need myself (plus the sachets are appalling VFM cf the 100g packets - Allinsons sachets are three times the £/kg compared to their 100g tins!)  Fortunately I have found a local deli that will sell me dried yeast (cheaper than the supermarkets, in fact), as well as a place that does it mail order at not too eye-popping a price if the worst comes to the worst.

Edited June 27, 2020 by ejstubbs

[rockershovel]

I very much suspect that there will be a long-term reduction in availability of specialist consumer items of all descriptions, accompanied by a permanent contraction of the retail market. Online retailers (particularly, but not exclusively Amazon) have essentially solved the problem of accurately supplying  very small quantities at greatly increased prices, dropping the price to offload market over-supply and increasing the price again as the market will bear. 

Edited June 27, 2020 by rockershovel

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

 

More of a problem, at least for those of us who like to make our own bread but who CBA with sourdough

That’s an odd reaction, we always used to make ordinary bread until we went on a sourdough course and realised it was so much easier to make than yeasted bread.......and tasted better 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by boxbrownie

[Butler Henderson]

Obviously benefitted today from the increased custom the Co-Op has had; earlier in the week I went in a picked up 2 pints of milk and two pack of fish cakes knowing their mobile app had 25p off milk and 50p off the fishcakes which have a £1 off if you pay two as well. At till realised I had forgot to activate the offers but paying 90p for the milk was cushioned by using the credit on my Co-Op card. So to use the offers up went back into and at the self service scanned them, knocked off the credit on the card and made sure the discounts were showing, press to pay by card (using a floor wipe first to clean the screen) and it responded with "cancelling transactions". The store manager came over and fiddled in the secret menu without success so he told me "just take your shopping" 

[eastglosmog]

17 hours ago, Paul.Uni said:

That is from March.

The story is correct, I accidentally gave the wrong link (see melmerby's post for the right one).

[andytrains]

On 13/06/2020 at 10:49, APOLLO said:

 

I bought the wife a pack of Tea Towels !!!!

 

Brit15

When I bought mine an 18v cordless drill and a Bachmann Jinty for her birthday a few years ago it didn't go down too well,

She bought me a Spa Weekend and a trip with her friends to see the pyramids a week later.

DOH!

HER BIRTHDAY IS A WEEK BEFORE MINE!

[rockershovel]

Went to Sainsbury’s on Saturday morning, for ... the first time in a long time. Rather a lifeless and dispiriting experience. No queue to get in. Stock levels were adequate but low, occasional gaps on the shelves and little choice. Deli closed, obviously for some time. Checkouts about 50% staffed, with a maze of Perspex screens. Cafe and crèche closed. 

 

Nagging little messages on the tannoy about “only buy what you need”. Very limited stocks of crusty bread.,

 

Petrol station open, car wash closed. Key cutting and barber concession cabins in the carpark, both closed. 

 

I don’t much care for shopping at the best of times and that sort of thing won’t be attracting me back.....

[woodenhead]

5 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Went to Sainsbury’s on Saturday morning, for ... the first time in a long time. Rather a lifeless and dispiriting experience. No queue to get in. Stock levels were adequate but low, occasional gaps on the shelves and little choice. Deli closed, obviously for some time. Checkouts about 50% staffed, with a maze of Perspex screens. Cafe and crèche closed. 

 

Nagging little messages on the tannoy about “only buy what you need”. Very limited stocks of crusty bread.,

 

Petrol station open, car wash closed. Key cutting and barber concession cabins in the carpark, both closed. 

 

I don’t much care for shopping at the best of times and that sort of thing won’t be attracting me back.....

I've been using Sainsburys throughout the recent period more so than Aldi and apart from the very early period where vultures replaced the other humans it's been fine.

 

I am shopping for two families at present as I also do my 'in laws' for them as they have had to shield, their shopping is more traditional than ours and I rarely find there are main products I cannot source at either of the two main shops.  There is a big Tesco nearby too, it has way more stock than our Sainsburys but as i don't need to make the slightly longer journey I stick local.

 

There can be queues at times to get in but most of the time there isn't an issue, however, another Sainsburys just outside the city centre (Manchester) is still suffering from massive queues that snake outside of it even now - went on Saturday hoping to find a replacement for a plate I broke and didn't even bother going into the car park.   Primark is another shop nearby where the queues are ridiculous, not that I am a member of the Primarky, I just saw the pics on the local Facebook page.  Had to go to Halfords on Saturday, chose Click & Collect, good choice, you get priority over the browsers in the queue outside.

[jcm@gwr]

I've been lucky, not only being able to drive when i wanted/needed to (I'm a plumber),

but also I have most of the major supermarkets within a 2 mile radius of my home.

So, I quite often drive into the carpark, notice the excessive queue, turn round and leave.

That has made it easier to get most of what we needed, pretty much when we needed it,

and never even thought about panic buying, or stocking up.

I also was buying some essentials for a few vulnerable friends (club members), and luckily

was able to get most of their stuff too.

B&Q was entertaining, but being a TradePoint cardholder meant a bit of priority service,

like being allowed in through the exit, instead of having to queue up outside!

Things seem to be getting back to normal (ish), but slowly.

[rockershovel]

I’d tend to agree that the initial madness was past, but “back to normal”? I beg to differ. We seem to be running on half a tank, with enough supplies available but choice much reduced, along with opening hours. I’m glad I don’t live in a town centre where the delivery services don’t operate, come to that I’m glad I’ve now retired from working away from home with 12 hr shifts plus weekday housekeeping to cope with. 

 

 

[TheQ]

Our local Tesco's is having a total internal rebuild, one aisle at a time removed, it's only a small tesco's in the first place. I'm having to go to a supermarket 20+ miles from home to get what we need...

 

BQ is not too bad timing is everything, first thing Saturday morning, or a Wednesday afternoon before most people finish work seems to be best..

[APOLLO]

Here in Wigan it seems more or less back to (a new but acceptable) normal in Tesco, Aldi & Lidl - no shortages of the things we usually buy and few if any empty shelves. No queuing anymore or at least very short ones at Tesco - dependent on time of visit. Town centre shops are now open (most) with queues outside some shops (Iceland Primark) but we don't use those. We used to visit Sainsburys occasionally, not been since lockdown started as it's on the other side of town so I don't know the score with our store. Asda - well, went once, seems as normal - hectic - just bought some plastic storage boxes and a crate of cheap Corona beer - (the name must be putting people of !!) and BOQ

(Bu99er off quick).

 

We are not stocking up but ensure we have a rotating small stock of certain items, if only to ensure the need only to go shopping once a week. For us Aldi seems to be the best for stock / price / quality thus far.

 

 

We don't do grocery shopping on line, but have found mail order / ebay etc very useful for many items unavailable (due to closed shops) this last few months. Scale this up countrywide, together with the inertia of people continuing to shop online and the future of shops / town centres is even bleaker than before Covid.  Use them or loose them it seems.

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

[Butler Henderson]

My Sainsburys is nearly back to normal which means if you are lucky one or two of an item on the shelf rather than none meaning people quite normally panic buy just on a lesser scale. I will admit to wiping the store out of mackeral fillets last week as they had just enough for what I will use in a month (i.e. 2 packs). Never known a store so poorly stocked regardless of what time of day.

[cctransuk]

7 minutes ago, Butler Henderson said:

...Sainsburys....Never known a store so poorly stocked regardless of what time of day.

 

Here in Bodmin, too! Don't they realise that, if they don't have it, they can't sell it?

 

However, I was told by a store manager that stocked items and stock levels are set for each store, according to store size. There is no flexibility as to what is stocked or the amount stocked - regardless of local demand.

 

I wanted the store to stock a beef curry ready-meal instead of the three chicken varieties that they always stock. Couldn't be done - if the stocked items were changed for that store, they'd have to be changed for every store of a similar size throughout the UK! Unbelieveable - it's no wonder that they loose market share!

 

John Isherwood.

[TheQ]

24 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

Here in Bodmin, too! Don't they realise that, if they don't have it, they can't sell it?

 

However, I was told by a store manager that stocked items and stock levels are set for each store, according to store size. There is no flexibility as to what is stocked or the amount stocked - regardless of local demand.

 

I wanted the store to stock a beef curry ready-meal instead of the three chicken varieties that they always stock. Couldn't be done - if the stocked items were changed for that store, they'd have to be changed for every store of a similar size throughout the UK! Unbelieveable - it's no wonder that they loose market share!

 

John Isherwood.

All the big 3, are heavily controlled by head office on what is supplied,  it's not quite true every store of the same size,  carries the same stock. If one store never managed to sell a particular item the computers would flag this up,  and it would be dropped from being supplied to that store.  If enough stores couldn't sell that item all stores would lose it.

The majority do rule though , which is why my local Tescos is being inflicted with ready meals,  although with now this area having the oldest average age in Britain (58.5 IIRC) we have much more of a population ready to cook real food.. I've now had to start shopping much more often in supermarkets 20 miles from home just to get real food.. 

Edited June 29, 2020 by TheQ

[Butler Henderson]

Weird thing Sainsburys is the largest store locally so you would expect them to carry more stock than Morrisons or Asda (no Tesco) but it seems as if size is inversely proportional to what is actually on the shelves. 

[APOLLO]

Sainsburys seems to have been going down the nick for quality / choice / stock for the last couple of years, just not the place it once was. New owners ? (Qatar royal family ?).

 

Brit15

[Mark Saunders]

2 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Sainsburys seems to have been going down the nick for quality / choice / stock for the last couple of years, just not the place it once was. New owners ? (Qatar royal family ?).

 

Brit15

 

Its a sign of old age, nothing is ever as good as it was!

 

But then all supermarkets seem to be on the race to the bottom!