Coronavirus virus fears causing panic buying

Tom B · 4 Apr 2020

Pasta is coming in at my local Tesco - but only spaghetti!

RailUK Forums

yorksrob · 4 Apr 2020

Bantamzen said:
You've been living on dried pasta and beans? Have you at least tried cooking the pasta...

The issue here is stupidity, lots, and lots of stupidity. There is no shortage of dried pasta, just a shortage of common sense.

Oh yes, well I do boil it myself ("new" man and all that).

My mum tells me you can bake it in the oven as well, though I've not tried it.

Bantamzen · 4 Apr 2020

Bletchleyite said:
It is the one and only exception to the fact that the War of the Roses is still ongoing and is far stronger than the north-south divide!

On the question of hoarding, I could at a push adopt the Asian style "washing" approach should I run out of bog roll, some consider it more hygienic anyway - but if the tea runs out Britain really stops!

Funnily enough bog roll doesn't seem to be an issue around these parts, I'm guessing that my area is so posh everyone has bidets...

Bletchleyite · 4 Apr 2020

Bantamzen said:
Funnily enough bog roll doesn't seem to be an issue around these parts, I'm guessing that my area is so posh everyone has bidets...

A lot of people "up North" don't realise the South isn't actually that posh throughout - just expensive!

Bletchley is just an average town, really. Not especially nice, but not especially nasty either. Just fairly generic, lots of 1970s Barratt boxes and the likes.

Bantamzen · 4 Apr 2020

Bletchleyite said:
A lot of people "up North" don't realise the South isn't actually that posh throughout - just expensive!

Surely expensive is posh...??

Bletchleyite · 4 Apr 2020

Bantamzen said:
Surely expensive is posh...??

I wish! As I live on my own I don't have a massive house nor do I need one but there's definitely not room for a bidet!

Bantamzen · 4 Apr 2020

Bletchleyite said:
I wish! As I live on my own I don't have a massive house nor do I need one but there's definitely not room for a bidet!

Well there goes my dreams. I'd always imaged that t'south was awash with mansions filled with bidets. Oh well, back to t'grim north wi'our outside toilets..

trainophile · 4 Apr 2020

Bletchleyite said:
A lot of people "up North" don't realise the South isn't actually that posh throughout - just expensive!

Bletchley is just an average town, really. Not especially nice, but not especially nasty either. Just fairly generic, lots of 1970s Barratt boxes and the likes.

Not much in the way of hotels though. When we came down to visit Bletchley Park we had to stay in Milton Keynes - now that was an experience we're in no hurry to repeat!

Regarding empty shelves - I read somewhere last night (will try and find it again for a link) that the problem with loo rolls isn't availability of stock, it's the shortage of lorries and drivers to distribute them due to the extra demand. One warehouse apparently has IIRC something like 25,000 pallets of the stuff, but they can't get it out to the wholesalers and stores quickly enough. Also, the reason some small shops have supplies is that they have fetched them from wholesalers themselves, whereas the large superstores are at the mercy of their daily or weekly deliveries.

https://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=940072

take loo roll.
theres two distrubution hubs i know that have about 250,000 pallets between then and several factorys working at max speed filling them up, so there is no shortage issues at the supply chain start.

problems start when the factory needs to ship the product to its own distrubtion hub, there is just not the lorries to do so.

once at the first distrubtion hub the supermarkets call off orders. someone like asda would do threepallets per week per big store and less for the smaller stores, add to the list tescos, morrisons, m&s, wincardo, blah blah blah, all of a sudden you have say 6.000 pallets per customer plus the whole sale market, plus every one else and the exports and so forth.

so orders come in on monday, we want 6,000 tescos loo roll pallets please. they need to go to our three main distrubtion hubs.
so thats 2000 pallets times three hubs at 24 pallets at a time thats 250 lorry movements or roughly 84 trucks to each distrubtion centre for tescos

once there its split down to the order levels required, stack on racking awaiting delivery to the stores them selves. but again we need a heap of lorries to do so

say everyone panics and buys loo rolls, all of the six seven buyer points all want loo rolls thats an easy 40,000 pallets this week alone, thats 1,700 lorry movements just to get bog roll to the distrubution centres.

so why is it that the local corner shop can buy and restock where as tescos cant?
quite simplythey can bypass the deliver lorry issues and go direct to the first distrubtion hub or a main wholesaler stocked from it. also where tescos shifts 6,000 pallets in a week easily, Bookers in birmingham might only need a third of that being delivered to them, the local shop can go to or three times to restock as the week drawsout as well , where as a tescos store is delivered only when its distrubtion hub allows it to.

Bletchleyite · 4 Apr 2020

trainophile said:
Not much in the way of hotels though. When we came down to visit Bletchley Park we had to stay in Milton Keynes - now that was an experience we're in no hurry to repeat!

There are quite a number of decent hotels in MK more widely including some in lovely lakeside settings and similar. Perhaps you didn't choose well

trainophile · 4 Apr 2020

Bletchleyite said:
There are quite a number of decent hotels in MK more widely including some in lovely lakeside settings and similar. Perhaps you didn't choose well

We were on the train, so had to find somewhere in walking distance of the station. Ended up in a little apartment that was quite nice, but even that was about a mile's walk. If we did it again the Jury's Inn would be a good bet, if a little pricey.

Bletchleyite · 4 Apr 2020

trainophile said:
We were on the train, so had to find somewhere in walking distance of the station. Ended up in a little apartment that was quite nice, but even that was about a mile's walk. If we did it again the Jury's Inn would be a good bet, if a little pricey.

OT, but I'd recommend the Premier Inns at Willen, Furzton and Caldecotte Lakes, you'd need a taxi or bus but the cost isn't huge, the MK taxi market is so competitive that fares are very low.

ainsworth74 · 4 Apr 2020

Think we might be heading a bit off-topic here

Bald Rick · 4 Apr 2020

Bletchleyite said:
I think with pasta and bog roll (and stuff like beans) people bought so much that the restocking has emptied the supply chain a long way back and so restocking will take much longer.

That’s my assessment too. I guess it’s Shelves emptied, RDCs empty, supplier warehouses empty.

Islineclear3_1 · 4 Apr 2020

At last; after nearly 2 weeks, I managed to find some flour at the delightful time of 7.30am...

It had all vanished 30min later...

PeterC · 4 Apr 2020

Found loo rolls (only in "family size" packs) and rice last week.

I do feel uncomfortable about letting the freezer run down too far. I should be able to go well over seven days without a shopping trip but if there was a problem I would then be stuck with a diet of oven chips and peas.

ainsworth74 · 4 Apr 2020

PeterC said:
Found loo rolls (only in "family size" packs) and rice last week.

Yes I noticed that it seemed like only huge packs of toilet roll were available. I did wonder if perhaps that was a conscious decision in the supply chain?

dgl · 4 Apr 2020

ainsworth74 said:
Yes I noticed that it seemed like only huge packs of toilet roll were available. I did wonder if perhaps that was a conscious decision in the supply chain?

Makes sense to simplify the product range by only selling what most people buy, it's not like having too many is generally a problem.

Karl · 4 Apr 2020

Plus, they work out cheaper per roll. A pack of 24 lasts me about three months ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

trainophile · 4 Apr 2020

Plus it means people don't have to go out so often for replenishments.

ainsworth74 · 4 Apr 2020

I mean you have all just outlined my thinking! So I'm pleased to see I'm so in tune with my fellow members. Then again is that a good thing...

edwin_m · 4 Apr 2020

yorksrob said:
On the subject of empty shelves, what the hell's happened to tomato ketchup ? I haven't seen it anywhere since the start of the crisis.

You can be sure that when ketchup finally appears, it will do so in a great glob which is much more than you wanted...

Most things in stock today at the local Asda with the main exception being hand cream. I guess after a few weeks of intensive handwashing everyone has cracked skin.

yorksrob · 4 Apr 2020

edwin_m said:
You can be sure that when ketchup finally appears, it will do so in a great glob which is much more than you wanted...

Very true

30907 · 4 Apr 2020

Bantamzen said:
Well there goes my dreams. I'd always imaged that t'south was awash with mansions filled with bidets. Oh well, back to t'grim north wi'our outside toilets..

Cue Four Yorkshiremen - you've got an outside toilet?

And as for bidets in Baildon - do they even have them on Tranmere Park, or Nab Wood? (Note to outsiders - relatively upmarket part of Guiseley, poshest part of Shipley, respectively).

PS to mods - not OT, we're discussing shortages of loo roll

341o2 · 4 Apr 2020

One of the reasons there is a shortage of toilet paper. I believe another reason is to stockpile and resell, but there doesn't appear to be any current eBay listings for single rolls from private sellers
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...its-three-people-arrested-toilet-paper-heist/

Three people were arrested in Essex last night after stealing a haul of toilet roll.

Police rolled into action last night after receiving a 999 call to report the burglary - within an hour they tracked down the suspected thieves, who had a van full of stolen toilet paper.

The Essex Police Operational Support Group (OSP) posted about the attempted heist on Twitter last night, with the hashtag #ThatsHowWeRoll.

“Police officers always get a massive sense of satisfaction when we catch burglars... however we never expected to find this stolen loot in the boot,” they wrote.

AndrewE · 4 Apr 2020

GusB said:
Indeed, we have the Macaroni pie in these parts. One of our local butchers has now introduced a Breakfast pie - sausage, egg, bacon, beans and black pudding in a Scotch pie case.

One thing I did notice about Asda was that they've cut the time that you can keep a delivery slot reserved. Normally a slot could be reserved until 11pm, but when I checked earlier the time was around 2 hours, so more will become available if people don't actually use them.

Just watching Rik Stein in Palermo... They have just had a pasta pie! OK, it's a bit more elaborate, but it looks brilliant. What a shame that our trip there is off (flights next month are cancelled) and that it seems to be one woman's personal take on the cuisine, so we wouldn't have been able to find it anyway...

Tom B · 4 Apr 2020

dgl said:
Makes sense to simplify the product range by only selling what most people buy, it's not like having too many is generally a problem.

This has happened in a few lines which, I assume, simplifies production as well as making replenishment easier.

ChrisC · 5 Apr 2020

ainsworth74 said:
Yes I noticed that it seemed like only huge packs of toilet roll were available. I did wonder if perhaps that was a conscious decision in the supply chain?

Exactly the opposite here at my local small village Co op. Got some on Friday, the first time I’ve seen any in there for 3 weeks, and all they had were packets of 4. Only two of those left but I wasn’t greedy and only took one. They have probably had toilet rolls in stock at times during the last few weeks but I’m keeping my shopping down to just twice a week. I’m getting quite used to walking to shop there instead of my usual shopping in a large Sainsburys in a town 5 miles away.

yorkie · 5 Apr 2020

ChrisC said:
Exactly the opposite here at my local small village Co op. ....

This is in line with what I would expect, as a small CoOp store has a different market to s larger store.

Bletchleyite · 5 Apr 2020

yorkie said:
This is in line with what I would expect, as a small CoOp store has a different market to s larger store.

Agreed. It probably makes sense for a given store to standardise on the pack size they'll sell most of. For a large supermarket that might as well be either 9, 12 or 24. For a local shop, probably 4, primarily because people mostly travel to such shops on foot and only buy a small number of items to carry home.

arbeia · 5 Apr 2020

A lot of the coffee prices have rocketed at Tesco. I noticed yesterday-good job I don't drink it!

Coronavirus virus fears causing panic buying

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