Supermarkets and Covid-19

[takno]

(and some obviously not exempt like the pair of young men who were buying beer)

This is not the facemask thread, and I assume this post will get moved shortly, but people judging other people as "obviously" not exempt is causing massive issues. It's simply not your call to make. Certainly not there and then, but preferably not even afterwards on social media

 

[Pete_uk]

There was a elderly woman in Iceland with her mask around her chin!

 

[Jayden99]

Lidl in High Wycombe was very panic buying adjacent when I was in today, mostly cleared out of pasta and tins, and stuff like bottled water. Is there a memo that I've missed?

 

[Jamiescott1]

Lidl in High Wycombe was very panic buying adjacent when I was in today, mostly cleared out of pasta and tins, and stuff like bottled water. Is there a memo that I've missed?

I thought the complete opposite when I went for a walk this morning. Usually lidl and aldi in wycombe have huge queues on a Saturday morning but at 11am there was no queues to enter either. Even sainsburys no longer seems to have a queue.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Lidl in High Wycombe was very panic buying adjacent when I was in today, mostly cleared out of pasta and tins, and stuff like bottled water. Is there a memo that I've missed?

Yes - all over 50's to be told to stay at home.

The message may not be the governments full intention (risk assessed over 50's) and it may have been dismissed as nonsense by some in government but, where there's smoke there's fire. Buy now while stocks last!

 

[Darandio]

Yes - all over 50's to be told to stay at home.

Is something that is being considered. You post that as though it's been officially announced and that's where problems such as panic buying begin.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Is something that is being considered. You post that as though it's been officially announced and that's where problems such as panic buying begin.

I think my second sentence makes it clear that it has not been officially announced, and that the message was nuanced - ie risk assessed over 50's not all over 50's. There was a 'memo', it was a private briefing to certain correspondents, suggested as being to float the idea to either soften up the public, or gauge likely reaction to any such measure were it to become official policy. Newspapers don't print such things without reason, they are (not yet at least) Facebook.

 

[bramling]

Yes - all over 50's to be told to stay at home.

The message may not be the governments full intention (risk assessed over 50's) and it may have been dismissed as nonsense by some in government but, where there's smoke there's fire. Buy now while stocks last!

Must admit I’ve been a lot happier since I stopped watching the news regularly. Many people would benefit from doing same.

 

[talldave]

Must admit I’ve been a lot happier since I stopped watching the news regularly. Many people would benefit from doing same.

I've not watched TV news for 5 years. Hence I've not been brainwashed by project fear.

 

[adc82140]

I've not stepped in a supermarket now for over 2 weeks, and it feels great

 

[Ostrich]

Popped into a Tesco in a nearby town late this afternoon to get a few things you can't seem to get in any of my local supermarkets. It was pretty busy. 100% mask compliance, but inside the store, despite plenty of 2m reminders, it was a complete free-for-all, and social distancing was pretty much impossible. Two of the checkouts that were open were facing each other, so you were right up close to the punter using the opposite conveyor belt. The majority of shoppers ripped their masks off on leaving the store, and some then noticeably dithered along the walkway to the carpark making them difficult to avoid. All-in-all, it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences, but I won't need to go back there anytime soon, thankfully ...

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've not stepped in a supermarket now for over 2 weeks, and it feels great

I went in a Tesco Express about half an hour ago. Everyone wearing masks and being sensible (but not excessively silly) over distancing as well. All in all a reasonable experience, though I found it stupid that the screen protecting the checkout operator didn't extend along the side, so by using the adjacent self service till I was in effect breaching it.

 

[Scrotnig]

Must admit I’ve been a lot happier since I stopped watching the news regularly. Many people would benefit from doing same.

I've not watched TV news for 5 years. Hence I've not been brainwashed by project fear.

I realised back in late April that I was destroying myself mentally by watching the rolling news channels - which historically I have always done. I stopped completely and won't watch any TV news now. I still read the BBC News website but only bits of it. I also gave up several web forums where the hysteria was just too much.

 

[Jonny]

I realised back in late April that I was destroying myself mentally by watching the rolling news channels - which historically I have always done. I stopped completely and won't watch any TV news now. I still read the BBC News website but only bits of it. I also gave up several web forums where the hysteria was just too much.

The mainstream media is largely to blame for the panic buying in the first place. They basically push 'fear porn'. It might not be porn in the truest sense, but it is similarly addictive.

 

[AdamWW]

The mainstream media is largely to blame for the panic buying in the first place. They basically push 'fear porn'. It might not be porn in the truest sense, but it is similarly addictive.

Although I think an awful lot of what the media called 'panic buying' is actually what you get when you have people sourcing all their food from supermarkets rather than getting their lunch from the sandwich shop etc.
I forget the figures I saw, but I was surprised how large a % of food was actually bought from cafes etc. (Though this might have been by value which would inflate the figures).

 

[Butts]

It's all about timing, when I was in Tesco Falkirk this Morning just after 6am (No silly ST Laws here) it was rewardingly empty.

 

[bramling]

The mainstream media is largely to blame for the panic buying in the first place. They basically push 'fear porn'. It might not be porn in the truest sense, but it is similarly addictive.

Agreed. A related problem is parts of the population seem unable to properly understand the word “could”, which seems to feature heavily in certain media stories.

 

[Hadders]

Although I think an awful lot of what the media called 'panic buying' is actually what you get when you have people sourcing all their food from supermarkets rather than getting their lunch from the sandwich shop etc.
I forget the figures I saw, but I was surprised how large a % of food was actually bought from cafes etc. (Though this might have been by value which would inflate the figures).

Panic buying is nothing to do with where people buy lunch. Panic buying is buying stuff you don't actually need, like a years worth of toilet rolls, six months worth of pasta, canned good you normally never, ever buy. Even the most sophisticated supply chains in the world won't cope with that sort of demand. Of course no-one has needed to buy any toilet rolls in this country since March causing further issues in the supply chain....

Switching where you buy lunch has next to no impact. Yes, supermarket sales will rise but the stock used to make lunch, e.g bread to make sandwiches gets diverted in the supply chain from cafes to supermarkets. Ok so it's a but more complicated than that but you get the drift.

I do agree that media reporting of panic buying had a big impact as people felt they had to follow the herd.

 

[bramling]

Panic buying is nothing to do with where people buy lunch. Panic buying is buying stuff you don't actually need, like a years worth of toilet rolls, six months worth of pasta, canned good you normally never, ever buy. Even the most sophisticated supply chains in the world won't cope with that sort of demand. Of course no-one has needed to buy any toilet rolls in this country since March causing further issues in the supply chain....

Switching where you buy lunch has next to no impact. Yes, supermarket sales will rise but the stock used to make lunch, e.g bread to make sandwiches gets diverted in the supply chain from cafes to supermarkets. Ok so it's a but more complicated than that but you get the drift.

I do agree that media reporting of panic buying had a big impact as people felt they had to follow the herd.

On the latter point, there came a point where there was little option but to follow. For those of us with limited time on our hands there wasn’t the time to go trawling round places to buy certain things, so it was a case of stocking up when possible. It was especially frustrating when the issues were caused by people stocking up on things they wouldn’t normally be buying much of in the first place.

 

[AdamWW]

Panic buying is nothing to do with where people buy lunch. Panic buying is buying stuff you don't actually need, like a years worth of toilet rolls, six months worth of pasta, canned good you normally never, ever buy. Even the most sophisticated supply chains in the world won't cope with that sort of demand. Of course no-one has needed to buy any toilet rolls in this country since March causing further issues in the supply chain....

Switching where you buy lunch has next to no impact. Yes, supermarket sales will rise but the stock used to make lunch, e.g bread to make sandwiches gets diverted in the supply chain from cafes to supermarkets. Ok so it's a but more complicated than that but you get the drift.

I agree with your definition of panic buying.

But from what I've read that wasn't the main cause of empty shelves. Yes some people were buying silly quantities of things, but that wasn't the main problem.
It doesn't take demand to go up much to cause huge problems to supermarket supply chains.

I do get the drift but it's actually quite a lot more complicated than just diverting stock from cafes to supermarkets - for a start cafes tend to take things in larger quantities than most people can buy and you can't just magic up sets of bags to decant - for example - large sacks of flour into.

 

[Darandio]

I do get the drift but it's actually quite a lot more complicated than just diverting stock from cafes to supermarkets - for a start cafes tend to take things in larger quantities than most people can buy and you can't just magic up sets of bags to decant - for example - large sacks of flour into.

Yet in some cases that is exactly what happened. Some supermarkets started selling sacks of flour and rice, presumably these had been diverted from elsewhere. They certainly weren't selling them before, or since for that matter.

 

[CrispyUK]

I do get the drift but it's actually quite a lot more complicated than just diverting stock from cafes to supermarkets - for a start cafes tend to take things in larger quantities than most people can buy and you can't just magic up sets of bags to decant - for example - large sacks of flour into.

Some creativity is definitely required and working with what you have, such as Morrisons using doughnut/bakery goods bags to decant larger sacks of flour into as shown on the link below.

I also saw a few examples of businesses that would normally only sell to the trade, instead offering home delivery services and selling directly to the public, may not have been a perfect/slick operation and some pack sizes might have been a bit too big, but these guys had loads of stock that their usual business customers weren’t buying, and the supermarket shelves were ransacked and bare!

Morrisons selling flour direct from its bakeries

Morrisons Blog

www.morrisons-corporate.com

 

[Hadders]

I agree with your definition of panic buying.

But from what I've read that wasn't the main cause of empty shelves. Yes some people were buying silly quantities of things, but that wasn't the main problem.
It doesn't take demand to go up much to cause huge problems to supermarket supply chains.

I do get the drift but it's actually quite a lot more complicated than just diverting stock from cafes to supermarkets - for a start cafes tend to take things in larger quantities than most people can buy and you can't just magic up sets of bags to decant - for example - large sacks of flour into.

Yet in some cases that is exactly what happened. Some supermarkets started selling sacks of flour and rice, presumably these had been diverted from elsewhere. They certainly weren't selling them before, or since for that matter.

I'm sorry but we'll have to agree to disagree. Cast your mind back to March and the height of panic buying and shelves were being stripped bare by customers. Everytime I visited a supermarket I didn't think it was possible for the shelves to be more empty but somehow they were, even canned artichokes sold out! This was nothing to do with where people were buying lunch but behaviour whipped up by social media and the media in general.

I've perhaps oversimplified my reply earlier so here's a bit more detail.

Take bread, it is produced in 800g loaves and essentially the same product whether it goes into retail shops or to factories for sandwich making. Easy to divert the bread from sandwich production to shops.

The pandemic has seen more baking and cooking from scratch at home. This is generally not an issue but it did lead to a shortage of flour and eggs (aided and abetted by the panic buying described above). There is plenty of flour and eggs produced in the UK but much of the production goes into packaging for the catering trade rather than into retail sze packaging. Retail packaging lines were running at full capacity but it's not straightforward to switch packaging lines designed for wholesaling/catering into retail. Many retailers started selling catering size bags of flour - now that the panic buying has stopped the catering size packs are not selling (and in many cases have already been heavily discounted and will probably end up going out of date).

The root cause of this was the vulture like panic buying.

 

[talldave]

I agree with your definition of panic buying.

But from what I've read that wasn't the main cause of empty shelves. Yes some people were buying silly quantities of things, but that wasn't the main problem.
It doesn't take demand to go up much to cause huge problems to supermarket supply chains.

i would have to question your choice of reading material. But that apart, did you not visit any supermarkets when panic buying set in? People with trollies full of milk, trollies full of toilet rolls? That was the cause of the empty shelves and the start of a nightmare for the supermarkets.

 

[AdamWW]

i would have to question your choice of reading material. But that apart, did you not visit any supermarkets when panic buying set in? People with trollies full of milk, trollies full of toilet rolls? That was the cause of the empty shelves and the start of a nightmare for the supermarkets.

Yes - I was visiting supermarkets through that peiod and no I didn't see panic buying like that.

It's so long ago that I can't provide links to what I read, but it did include statistics and concluded that the people with stupidly full trollies weren't the main cause of the problem.

And sure there are some things like loaves of bread that can be diverted and used in the same form, once you've set up the logistics to do so.

But if you look in the kitchen of a restaurant, I think you won't find a lot that is in the same size packaging as you'd get in a supermarket.

Anyway it's possible that what I read was wrong and I don't insist on being right on this one.

 

[Richard Scott]

Yes - I was visiting supermarkets through that peiod and no I didn't see panic buying like that.

It's so long ago that I can't provide links to what I read, but it did include statistics and concluded that the people with stupidly full trollies weren't the main cause of the problem.

And sure there are some things like loaves of bread that can be diverted and used in the same form, once you've set up the logistics to do so.

But if you look in the kitchen of a restaurant, I think you won't find a lot that is in the same size packaging as you'd get in a supermarket.

Anyway it's possible that what I read was wrong and I don't insist on being right on this one.

Seem to remember someone saying that some of the issues were people buying one item, on a just in case basis when they didn't actually need it and this added to the problem causing a shortage of some items. Others were just selfish panic buying.

 

[Smidster]

Seem to remember someone saying that some of the issues were people buying one item, on a just in case basis when they didn't actually need it and this added to the problem causing a shortage of some items. Others were just selfish panic buying.

That sounds right

While it was the complete nutcases who bought 250 toilet rolls who get the media attention the real problem comes with a much higher proportion getting a small amount more than usual. The supply chain is honed for a given level of demand and struggles when demand increases unexpectedly.

And of course getting a small surplus is perfectly rational - with things like track & trace having enough food to see you through a week or two is pretty sensible

 

[adc82140]

The panic buying was also confined to bigger stores. There was always bog roll at small convenience stores. There was always bog roll at B&Q (they stock it because of the need to supply to builders for site toilets)

 

[yorksrob]

The panic buying was also confined to bigger stores. There was always bog roll at small convenience stores. There was always bog roll at B&Q (they stock it because of the need to supply to builders for site toilets)

"You can poo it when you B&Q it"

 

[Skimpot flyer]

"You can poo it when you B&Q it"

Since reopening, they’ve become B&QQQQQQQQQQQ