Panic buying

[Mark Saunders]

27 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

 

An old farmer I have known for years said, back in the late 80s, that the "British housewife" would be the death of farming in this country with demands for ever cheaper stuff.

A reasonably good guide to what food should cost can be seen by the prices at places like Farm Shops, or the real organic / free range goods one sees from time to time.

 

I fear for British Farmers when a current Senior UK government adviser says farming 'not critically important' and his boss is MP for Richmond a Farming constituency!

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

I can't remember my Grandmother having a fridge and this was into the 1970's, summer was a bucket o water or the milk bottle!

We had a fridge in the 60s and didn't think it unusual.

It went on the "slab" in the pantry (yes a proper pantry with a cold slab and ventilation grill to allow air circulation) where perishables would have stood

[LBRJ]

7 minutes ago, melmerby said:

We had a fridge in the 60s and didn't think it unusual.

It went on the "slab" in the pantry (yes a proper pantry with a cold slab and ventilation grill to allow air circulation) where perishables would have stood

 

Technically I still have one of those - though the CH boiler also lives in that room now.

But

The CH boiler dont get a lot of use in summer, and the slab is still cold enough to put things on for the time being....which with me tends to end up being  quite a long time

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

I fear for British Farmers when a current Senior UK government adviser says farming 'not critically important' and his boss is MP for Richmond a Farming constituency!

 

I'm sure I remember someone saying something similar during foot and mouth. Not big enough economically it seems, despite supply supermarkets that are, and rather more importantly we all need to eat, which I've always regarded as critically important.

[J. S. Bach]

10 hours ago, alastairq said:

 ...snip...come on, folks, they're only papier mache after all...something a lot of us will be familiar with?

Over here I have seen styrofoam, clear plastic, cardboard, and maybe some form of paper mache.

[LBRJ]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

 

I'm sure I remember someone saying something similar during foot and mouth. Not big enough economically it seems, despite supply supermarkets that are, and rather more importantly we all need to eat, which I've always regarded as critically important.

 

The handling of the F&M crisis really was quite a good example of how them in charge really can get so much so wrong.

[polybear]

10 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Bear in mind that low farmworkers wages are a backward extrapolation of the (sometimes ludicrously) low prices we all feel we need to pay for their produce.

Start at the farmers end of the operation with them paying a basic living wage/minimum wage and see what the shop price would be.

 

Mike.

 

 

 

Apparently the price of milk paid to farmers has dropped in recent weeks (one farmer on BBC stating it cost him 6p/litre to produce.  The Milk Marketing Board (or whatever they call themselves now) blame drop in demand due to Restaurants, Hotels etc etc shutting down.  I have yet to see a corresponding (or any) drop in shop price though.  Strange, that.

Surely consumer use of milk has gone up though....

I smell someone lining their own pockets.

[melmerby]

54 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Apparently the price of milk paid to farmers has dropped in recent weeks (one farmer on BBC stating it cost him 6p/litre to produce.  The Milk Marketing Board (or whatever they call themselves now) blame drop in demand due to Restaurants, Hotels etc etc shutting down.  I have yet to see a corresponding (or any) drop in shop price though.  Strange, that.

Surely consumer use of milk has gone up though....

I smell someone lining their own pockets.

It was just one private marketing group.

Arla, which is one of the larger producers is a Dairy Farmer owned co-operative and in March increased the farm gate price by 0.9p/litre. They have kept the same price for April.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/dairy-markets/relief-for-members-as-arla-holds-april-milk-price

 

All Asda milk is Arla and they also do a "Farmers Milk" range which is the same stuff but with a premium paid to the Farmers.

That's whats in my basket to be delivered today. I don't mind paying a little extra to keep these guysin business.

Edited April 6, 2020 by melmerby

[rockershovel]

One of Orwell’s essays deals with the ongoing debate in the 1930s, regarding the actual cost of food and its relationship to wages and unemployment pay. It’s clear from this that food was not a cheap item, in terms of overall earnings, before WW2. 

 

It was a major element of the post-1945 consensus that there should be “no return to the 1930s” and the poverty and malnutrition that entailed. Cheap, nutritious food was as important as employment and housing. 

 

My recollection of growing up on my late mother’s widow’s pension and other minor incomes, was that in the 1960s and 1970s, food was a major part of the household budget. Mum was a great fan of the then-new supermarkets. 

 

If the British public are educated to expect cheap food, it is the supermarket chains which have created this expectation, in relatively recent times. 

 

My early recollections of Europe, in pre-EEC and early EEC times, are of how expensive things seemed “over there”. It also needs bearing in mind that Britain, and especially England, are not primarily rural countries. The political imperative to support agriculture, notably in France, is not a big issue in electoral terms. 

 

[jonny777]

48 minutes ago, melmerby said:

It was just one private marketing group.

Arla, which is one of the larger producers is a Dairy Farmer owned co-operative and in March increased the farm gate price by 0.9p/litre. They have kept the same price for April.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/dairy-markets/relief-for-members-as-arla-holds-april-milk-price

 

All Asda milk is Arla and they also do a "Farmers Milk" range which is the same stuff but with a premium paid to the Farmers.

That's whats in my basket to be delivered today. I don't mind paying a little extra to keep these guysin business.

 

My problem with Arla, is that it is a multi-billion € Danish business, similar in size to French owned Danone.

 

Why we cannot have large scale UK-owned dairy businesses is a mystery to me.  This is why I try to buy as much Yeo Valley product as I can (it helps that they are relatively local). Rachel's Organic used to be British (Welsh in fact) but have allowed themselves to be taken over by the French. 

 

I can buy Tom Parker products via the milkman, but try not to buy any farm products (except occasionally New Zealand lamb) which are not British owned. However, it is not easy sometimes. Why is it that the Europeans can make a success out of things we Brits seem unable to do? 

[boxbrownie]

9 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

My problem with Arla, is that it is a multi-billion € Danish business, similar in size to French owned Danone.

 

Why we cannot have large scale UK-owned dairy businesses is a mystery to me.  This is why I try to buy as much Yeo Valley product as I can (it helps that they are relatively local). Rachel's Organic used to be British (Welsh in fact) but have allowed themselves to be taken over by the French. 

 

I can buy Tom Parker products via the milkman, but try not to buy any farm products (except occasionally New Zealand lamb) which are not British owned. However, it is not easy sometimes. Why is it that the Europeans can make a success out of things we Brits seem unable to do? 

Down here we try to always buy Roddas or Trewithen milk, truly local and independent dairys, if we cannot then it’s the “farmers milk” with a 10p premium direct to the farmers........too many are closing because of the demand (from the supermarkets, not the customer) for cheap produce, I believe if you want it, and it’s worth it, you should pay what it’s worth not some market lead price war loss leader cost.

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by boxbrownie

[Enterprisingwestern]

43 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Down here we try to always buy Roddas or Trewithen milk, truly local and independent dairys, if we cannot then it’s the “farmers milk” with a 10p premium direct to the farmers........too many are closing because of the demand (from the supermarkets, not the customer) for cheap produce, I believe if you want it, and it’s worth it, you should pay what it’s worth not some market lead price war loss leader cost.

 

 

Call me cynical, but, does every 10p of every pint actually get paid to the farmers by the supermarkets?

 

Mike.

[boxbrownie]

9 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Call me cynical, but, does every 10p of every pint actually get paid to the farmers by the supermarkets?

 

Mike.

Well according to a friend we know in the NFU.....yes, it’s ARLA’s policy.

[boxbrownie]

12 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Call me cynical, but, does every 10p of every pint actually get paid to the farmers by the supermarkets?

 

Mike.

Oh sorry, I forgot.......your cynical 

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

One of Orwell’s essays deals with the ongoing debate in the 1930s, regarding the actual cost of food and its relationship to wages and unemployment pay. It’s clear from this that food was not a cheap item, in terms of overall earnings, before WW2. 

 

It was a major element of the post-1945 consensus that there should be “no return to the 1930s” and the poverty and malnutrition that entailed. Cheap, nutritious food was as important as employment and housing.

 

You've got to be a little careful in extrapolating the economic situation of the 30s to draw a picture of the norm of the type of place the country was in general before the war due to the effects of the Great Depression.

[Hroth]

Local Aldi is now back (more or less) to normal for stock, even with items like rice and... toilet paper.  The only abnormal aspect of shopping there is the queueing to get in.

 

[MartinWales]

32 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

You've got to be a little careful in extrapolating the economic situation of the 30s to draw a picture of the norm of the type of place the country was in general before the war due to the effects of the Great Depression.

And yet what later inspired 'The Road To Wigan Pier' was written at the insistence of his publisher Victor Gollancz also a dedicated social reformer. 

[Reorte]

3 minutes ago, MartinWales said:

And yet what later inspired 'The Road To Wigan Pier' was written at the insistence of his publisher Victor Gollancz also a dedicated social reformer. 

 

It often seems to happen that peaks and troughs in the economic cycle get treated as the new norm rather than temporary phenomena.

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

You've got to be a little careful in extrapolating the economic situation of the 30s to draw a picture of the norm of the type of place the country was in general before the war due to the effects of the Great Depression.

 

You are right but you might equally argue that austerity following the banking crisis is the 21st century depression.

 

There will always be factors which say that this event is not the same as a similar one as happened before.

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, jonny777 said:

 

My problem with Arla, is that it is a multi-billion € Danish business, similar in size to French owned Danone.

 

 

It's a Farmer owned Co-op. It has approx 10000 members in several countries in Europe with about 25% in the UK.

IMHO where it is headquarted is irrelevant.

 

It is nothing like Danone which is an aggressive S.A. (PLC to us in the UK) beholden to it's shareholders.

 

Edit

I normally buy Longley Farm yoghurt, which only Morrisons stock in this area. As I am not able to get to Morrisons it's off the menu right now.

Longley Farm is a Family owned dairy in near Holmfirth.

Edited April 6, 2020 by melmerby

[Reorte]

20 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

You are right but you might equally argue that austerity following the banking crisis is the 21st century depression.

 

There will always be factors which say that this event is not the same as a similar one as happened before.

I would say that, because I think when assessing what things were like at a given time it makes sense to separate the two out, i.e. the economic factors that would make things easier or harder even if nothing else changed. Of course the reality is that it's all inter-related but it's still a generally useful separation. The current situation will doubtless have long-term economic impact for example but I'd still draw those out separately from the general pros and cons of life in the early 2020s.

[jonny777]

30 minutes ago, melmerby said:

It's a Farmer owned Co-op. It has approx 10000 members in several countries in Europe with about 25% in the UK.

IMHO where it is headquarted is irrelevant.

 

 

 

Not according to Wikipedia - "Arla Foods is today owned by approximately 10,600 milk producers in Denmark and Sweden."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arla_Foods_UK

 

Where the HQ is located is very relevant (to me anyway), as that is usually where the bulk of the tax is paid. 

[Rivercider]

Another shift, and yet more changes at the store where I work.

 

The home shopping picking team with their additional new recruits now start at 04.00 (instead of 06.00), this enables them to to have fuller shelves to pick from, and mostly get clear of the aisles before the store opens to customers at 08.00. The only downside I can see is if the night replenishment team have not finished shelf stacking some products might not be available to pick.

Some additional one-way aisles have been introduced - its not perfect, but most folk are understanding. Then there is one queue to be called forward to an available checkout.

 

Stock levels continue to be at or above normal on most lines including fruit and veg,

 

cheers   

Edited April 6, 2020 by Rivercider
Additional info

[Mark Saunders]

24 minutes ago, Rivercider said:

 

Some additional one-way aisles have been introduced - its not perfect, but most folk are understanding. Then there is one queue to be called forward to an available checkout.

   

 

Ikea introduced the one way system years ago!

[Gwiwer]

2 minutes ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

Ikea introduced the one way system years ago!

 

And with it came an escalation in the divorce rate!  

 

It is a documented phenomenon that the males among us typically shop on the go in - get what you came for - get out principle whereas females are far more likely to browse much of an entire shop.

 

Personally I detest the IKEA "experience" since I already know what I want.  I don't need to waste an hour wandering through all manner of other displays.   I guess that's one way to stop panic buying - you're exhausted and at the end of your patience by the time you check out!