Replenishing stocks - what to stock up on

[BrieAndChilli]

So supplies got a bit depleted during lockdown so need to start replenishing a little (plus after seeing the shortages during the beginning of lockdown DH has decided it would be wise to stock up again for brexit after taking the micknwhen I first started stocking up!!!)

I will still have loads of tinned spaghetti, fray bentos pies were NOT a hit so won’t be getting those again.

I can see we eat lots of tuna, baked beans, tinned tomatoes and tinned beans/chickpeas, coconut milk so will replenish all of them, tinned fruit and other veg wasn’t touched but will still be handy if fresh is in short supply.
Will restock oil, uht milk uht juice, peanut butter, Nutella and jam.
Realised we don’t eat as much pasta as I thougt but do eat more rice!
Definitely need bread flour, plain and self raising along with cocoa power, caster sugar and icing sugar.

What things do you think will be a shortage of - same things that were short in lockdown (pasta, tinned toms, flour, sugar, rice etc?)

[LadyofMisrule]

I think Lockdown buying didn't reflect unavailability as much as it reflected what it important to people. So people may fall back on the same options to give them security for Brexit as they did for lockdown, regardless of whether or not they will be in short supply as a result of the criminally stupid decision to leave the EU.

For us that means pasta, rice, flour, tuna, baked beans and tomatoes.

...and for me that means coffee, coffee and a bit more coffee.

[CMOTDibbler]

Locally to me, getting fresh produce (milk, fruit, veg, meat) wasn't an issue at all, but supermarket stuff was. So I have stashed (along with rice, veg oil, tinned toms etc) things like stock cubes, gravy, curry powder, icing sugar, baking powder, yeast, flour, dried fruit so there is plenty of ingredients to go with the fresh. Am also putting away things for Christmas baking so it is there all ready

[bellinisurge]

Weirdly, Fray Bentos pies were a big hit with everyone but me.
I'd think about Christmas baking if you do that.

[Rowanberries]

Yeast and flour were the things that we really struggled with getting. I now have a really healthy stock of both!

[FeralUnicorn]

Flour is high in my list, I’m getting there slowly but it’s still pretty hard to get here!

[thelegohooverer]

I’d work backwards from Christmas, getting in whatever is traditional/important to your family’s Christmas.

I’ve stocked up on non edible supplies (washing liquid, tin foil, kitchen roll etc) as I’m expecting delivery services to struggle when the weather turns. There were limits on how many items you could order so if I’m trying to manage on 70 items every 3 weeks like in March I’d rather be buying food than shampoo.

Think through your winter staples. One of the flaws in my pandemic prepping was that in January I was filling my freezer with soup and stew, but March and April were glorious and warm and I didn’t want to eat stodgy winter food!

I’m not predicting similar problems as in March because then there was a sudden, unprecedented shift in buying patterns then. People who had been using jumbo toilet rolls at work now needed toilet roll at home so small rolls were sold out because manufacturing/buyers hadn’t time to shift gear. People who buy lunch and takeaways were suddenly thrown on their own resources so pasta sold out.

I don’t think a nationwide lockdown is likely (touch wood) but probably there will be localised ones. I’d be paying attention now to news of harvests - grain hasn’t been good this year, so bread, flour, corn are likely to rise in price.

[FrolickingLemon]

I've already got DD off school with symptoms and waiting the home test coming through, so I'm reflecting on having my good stash of calpol, cough mixture, lozenges and also good working thermometer and pulse oximeter.

Looking to have plenty of 'easy to eat' food in. Which we all talked about months ago. I'm ok for flour and bread mixes as I've bulk bought from the mills direct. Plentiful supplies in larder of tins and dried foods. Freezer chock a block with meat and veg.

On my next weeks shopping delivery I'm going to buy 5 tubs of lurpak and a couple of packs of loo roll. I can see things escalating again and I do worry about no longer being able to get deliveries easily. Also getting ahead with prescriptions and vitamins etc. Altough my meds cupboard is still largely fully stocked.

[IceCreamAndCandyfloss]

Pasta, rice and noodles we really struggled to get so I’ve been stocking up on those. I’m going to look back at orders and see what was out of stock no not delivered and add the non perishables to this weeks sock.

Medicine cupboard stocked up online thanks to helpful posters providing lists so I know we are set that side and I’ve done the same for the pets as well as vaccines and checkups.

Cleaning products, kitchen and toilet roll were really hard to get so it’s worth ensuring those are stocked up on along with any favourite toiletries etc.

If the supermarkets go back to restricting quantities on orders it’s better to be able to just buy food than having to get other items mean less of other things.

[JamesZebra]

I am starting with non perishable stuff so I got 45 loo rolls in Costco last week for £15, I am nearly stocked up on toiletries and I am going to move on to washing powder etc over the coming weeks + pet supplies as they have a pretty long life span.
Again you can get some great deals on bulk buys in costco- a huge box or persil (140 washes) is £12, large bottles of fairy washing up liquid and they work out at about £1 each. Big bottles of fabric softener for £5. My DP thinks I am nuts but with all these things, we will use them up so if it all ends up being for nothing then I will get a few months of really cheap shopping bills which is always nice.

Once I have the non perishables sorted I need to sort out my stock cupboard (its been used as a bit of a dumping ground) and work out what we need, what we didn't use etc. donate some stuff to the food bank.

I also found this recipe which I thought looked very versatile for flat breads without yeast!
www.recipetineats.com/easy-soft-flatbread-yeast/

You can use them as wraps, cooked for a bit longer they work as Naan bread and I was thinking they would be great as pizza bases or garlic bread.......just something to think about as I struggled to get yeast during lock down. plus its an easy make with the kids :)

[SpringSunshineandTulips]

Interesting thread. I guess medicines, toiletries and cleaning stuff is a good idea. Hand wash and sanitiser too. I’m
Going to make sure we have all the clothes we need for the winter although it’s hard with not being able to try them on.

[moominmomma1234]

I think we will be having frequent 14day self isolation over winter so need to be well stocked for that. I also think cover rates will rise to the level that will make me too anxious to go shopping, and I discovered under lockdown that buying stuff online/amazon are 5 times what costs are in homebargains!
so next week I am having a good browse at home bargains mainly for home stuff - so far on list are batteries, antifreeze for car, deicer, bulbs, screws, bubble solution for kids, colouring and art stuff. toys to break up the boredom of 14days at home. medicine, cooling fever strips for head, hot water bottles for when boiler blows and we can't get a plumber because society has ground to a halt! vitamins, wrapping paper for kids birthdays, cleaning and laundry stuff, toilet and drain unblocker, slime making stuff- glue etc, bicarb of soda and vinegar for sensory games (couldn't get it in lockdown) food colouring for sensory games, hand gel. few packs of sanity towels. food wise homebargians do cheap microwave rice, a tiptop squirt cream that doesn't need to be kept in the fridge until opened. cheap jelly. loads of biscuits and sweets. tho I need to hide the stash from myself! I bet they have already got a xmas aisle and halloween section on the go! they do cheap tins of tuna. that was hard to get hold of in lockdown.

I will send husband to a diy store and see if any stocks of stuff might need incase plumbing etc emergency in the home.

I know this sounds like I have loads of money to fritter away but we don't and I am not sure how much of this list I will be able to buy this month, but really I don't think I will be wanting to go shopping much from October onwards, apart from online.

[moominmomma1234]

oh forgot to add postage stamps, gloves, socks, undies, sponges (was shortage of them under lockdown! ) thin bleach, xmas candles, camping gas for our little camping cooker- cheap at homebargains.

[moominmomma1234]

and balsam pocket tissues because I don't think its acceptable for me or the kids to wiping our snot on our sleeves anymore!!
crikey my list is growing

[BrieAndChilli]

I’m going to get a couple of extra tins of things each time I shop plus some job-perishable Christmas goodies.
A few lightbulbs have gone recently so will check stock of them, batteries.
Pretty stocked up on homeschool supplies, possibly need a couple of packs of printer paper.
Will be checking wellies/winter coats/hats and scarves and gloves etc.
Scaling down on Xmas presents this year as the kids really don’t need anything and are at that awkward young teen age where they are too old for toys, have the gadgets etc they need and not really into branded clothes/make up yet.
Winter car supplies - deicer etc is a good one.

[SupplyChainHusband]

Hi, first time poster here. We are a household of two; our first child is due around Valentine's Day. Both of us struggle at the moment with mental health issues; DW has bipolar type 2 (making her vulnerable to depression) plus OCD and anxiety. Fortunately we live in the Nottingham area which has extremely good perinatal services on the NHS for mothers and children with mental health issues. I'm suffering with depression; I got made redundant for the third time in 3 years back in mid May (I was head of supply chain for a medium sized company). I've only just accepted my health issues so have had a first GP appointment but am keen to try to recover in time for the birth.

Being into supply chain, warehousing comes naturally to me (including at the home level) as does figuring out what might be a problem; we got lucky for Covid19 in March because we did our panic shopping 3 weeks before the rest of the country did because I'd seen reports of panic buying happening in Asia.

Disclaimer, we have a heck of a lot of available storage space and because we rent we have two fridges and freezers and are taking full advantage. DW is veggie but I'm not.

The UK's wheat harvest (as several have pointed out) has been the worst for 40 years. In a normal year the UK imports about 15% of its grain requirements for flour; much of that 15% is bread flour that comes in from Canada in grain form (rather than flour) because the UK has sufficient milling facilities. The remainder is primarily made up of softer French grains (for French style bread such as baguettes) and German grain is imported usually to balance off any shortcomings in the UK harvest. If interested, the national association for British and Irish Millers (NABIM) has more on the topic here: www.nabim.org.uk/imports-and-exports. I did the maths on our bread consumption (we like wholemeal seeded loaves) and ordered a bunch of white strong bread flour plus wholemeal strong bread flour plus yeast from dove farms via Amazon (way cheaper than going direct to them) plus mixed seeds in bulk from forest whole foods (4 working days later and I'm still waiting for that to arrive). Note that the shelf life of flour can be extended if you're lucky enough to have fridge - or even better freezer - space, Google for more info on that. I think yeast can be too.

In terms of non food items, we have stocked up on freezer bags, baking paper and foil and I will experiment with beeswax in lieu of cling film (on environmental grounds rather thanf brown stuff hitting the fan grounds). Beeswax is super easy to make and a fun easy project to involve children in; get some fat quarters (fabric) from a haberdashery, Hobbycraft is ideal, order in some food grade beeswax pellets, a quick bake to melt the pellets into the fabric and bobs your uncle. There are lots of DIY how to videos available plus info on how to take care of them, no need to overpay and buy premade beeswax fabric. Matches, a second hot water bottle are on the list as are candles in case of power failures which I read is a possibility.

Other things in the non food section include a few light bulbs, several large bottles of fairy liquid, several tubes of toothpaste (don't buy the expensive Colgate, the cheap stuff is the same thing, see www.hovedentalclinic.co.uk/blog/whats-the-best-toothpaste/ if you're not convinced). I too noticed a shortage of dish sponges and green scratchy cloths so they're on the buying list. We got married just under two years ago and DW went heavy on fairy light decoration so we still have several dozen AA Duracell batteries for torches. Hand soap is rapidly piling up as is shampoo, shower gel and cleaning products, dishwasher tablets, dishwasher salt, dishwasher rinsing liquid, Brillo pads, laundry detergent and of course loo rolls. I also tossed in two bottles of Mr muscle drain unblocker liquid. DW also has enough pregnacare pills to last the remainder of the pregnancy. I've also ordered three tubes of body shop hemp hand cream. It's absolutely amazing for fixing painfully cracked dry hands; winter is a problem for both of us for that anyway without increased hand washing.

Christmas presents; in a normal year I'd be at least halfway through by now because I hate shopping in December but prepping for our baby's arrival and endless searching for a job plus brexit prepping has left Christmas on the back burner but at least we stocked up on Christmas cards and wrapping paper for silly prices last January.

Car - MOTs got extended due to Covid19 but that extension ends at the beginning of October. End result, there'll be double the usual demand on garages (delayed April MOT plus normal October MOT) and that'll last for the next six months. Our main car is due for a MOT early October and so is already booked in before it dawns on many people they need to do something and there's no space left. In terms of car prep we have two 5 litres of screenwash plus deicer.

Dog prep; Fido is wading his way through his monthly jumbo sized box of Wainwright's; an Amazon monthly subscription turned out to be the cheapest solution for us but he'll get 4 boxes of it. On a side note, if you have a dog and are interested, www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk/the-dog-food-directory is a real eye opener about the true quality of the food you give them. So many major brands are such rubbish it's alarming. We will also heavily load up on all his treats.

Main courses for humans: a lot of dried pasta (wholemeal), wholemeal rice, several packets of soup broth mix (good for bulking out stews and soups), oohh just realised haven't got any pearl barley, ten boxes of passata, 3 large bottles of tomato ketchup (DW practically inhales it), just over 50 cans of chopped tomatoes, about 20 cans of chickpeas, 20 cans of sweetcorn (DW loves the stuff), about 100 cans covering every kind of bean you can think of, various canned veg (although potatoes are only for frying up for breakfasts or to hide in curries, ditto the peas for curries only). We are getting a second can opener just in case. There's also various dried herbs and spices to make things tasty. If you can go hit an Asian store for herbs and spices as they're usually far cheaper than the mainstream supermarket chains.

Comfort: Two tubs of quality Street and two of celebrations (be careful with best before date, ours only last until end of Jan 21), popcorn kernels (easy to cook, good comfort food), 4.5 kg of self raising flour and the same of plain flour to cover cakes and biscuits plus 9kg of granulated sugar (a quick whiz in any kind of smoothie maker can convert it into caster sugar and a bit more whizzing makes it into icing sugar). 8kg of unsalted butter are in the freezer for baking (they will keep for months) as are several packs of instant pastry, we have 4 months worth of lidl fake Lurpak also in the freezer and slowly but surely the freezer is filling up with an awful lot of grated mozzarella, red Leicester and cheddar (the texture when defrosted can put off some but we will use them for the likes of cheese toasties, pasta bakes and cauliflower cheese soup). The remaining space in the freezer will be for spinach (lots of iron) and frozen berries (we like them on cereal / granola).

Not in the freezer: oat milk. We love the stuff but the texture goes all kinds of wrong and you need to restrain it and I haven't got time for that. That sits on the shelf life. Be careful, Oatly whilst much nicer than Alpro or supermarket versions doesn't last as long so check the BBE dates. Talking of oat milk I've also got two tins of Aldi hot chocolate powder (so much nicer than the green and blacks posh version). Also talking of drinks, I'm building up a stash of alcohol for me - there are several bottles of wine for DW post birth if she's allowed them with breast feeding (haven't got that far in our parenting books).

Everything edible or drinkable has been labelled with month and year BBE dates using standard white sticky labels to make it quickly obvious what is or isn't going out of date. I'm pondering whether to get some newborn sized nappies or not just in case. We were thinking of going down the reusable ones route.

[bellinisurge]

Hand cream. Said it at the beginning of all this. Will say it again.

[CeibaTree]

@SupplyChainHusband What a great post - thank you! Good luck with your job hunting and impending parenthood :)

[BrieAndChilli]

@bellinisurge

Hand cream. Said it at the beginning of all this. Will say it again.

Sshh don’t tell anyone but the child’s farm moisturiser is really good. I started getting it a year or so ago when DS1 started washing his hands like he was scrubbing for surgery and had awfully sore cracked hands. I know leave some by the sink and he has had no soreness since. Don’t tell everyone else it will sell out

[BrieAndChilli]

@SupplyChainHusband

Great post and a to go good info.
You didn’t mention any baby stuff so just in case you hadn’t thought about it/hadn’t realised how much babies get through

I would stock up on;

Nappies - several different sizes so you aren’t caught unawares when baby has grown and you can’t get to the shops. Of course you might be going down the cloth nappy route but I would get some packs of disposables in for the possibility of power cuts etc when you might not be able to wash them
Wipes - you go through tonnes. Likewise ton can get reusable but in case of power cuts/water shortages I would get some normal wipes
Formula - if breastfeeding you don’t need to worry about this BUT I would get in a couple of bottles with the best breast like tears and a few cartons of ready mixed formula. Just in case of a nasty case of mastitis or other such emergency. Of course you can also pump and freeze breast milk for such emergencies too.
Clothing - vests and sleep suits in a few of the next sizes. Again just in case of supply issues
Sudacrem, baby wash/shampoo/ babies first toothbrush and paste, Nipple cream, breast pads, maternity pads, cotton wool, Muslim cloths,

Big one as it ran out for months during lockdown is CALPOL. A parent should never be without at least one bottle of calpol and a back up. I would also add a bottle of nurofen as well as can be given in tandem for worst case scenarios such as ear infection.

[moominmomma1234]

Good tips thank you , And just thinking of cracked hands and cracked nipples ! There is a product called lanisoh for cracked nipples . Also, it can be used as a v intense, thick, hand cream . The tube is expensive and too large to ever All be used on nipples but worth getting, It’s midwife recommended. And good to have in advance because when those nipples get cracked she will be begging for nipple cream even at 3 am!
It’s lanolin so not sure if that fits in with her veggie ethos

[MotorwayDiva]

I think my tins etc are back to pre lockdown levels, I never thought we get through all the pasta I bought, but that ran out last month, so need to keep getting and extra one each week.
Have got household stuff and Xmas presents.
Need to get more flour and yeast.
Ordered more packet sauces to give more variety, and have stock more meat in freezer. Got sick of cooking in lockdown but was better than the freezer ready meals.

[RemyHadley]

@SupplyChainHusband - great post, thank you, that was very helpful. Just adding some thoughts on prepping for a first baby:

Great to use reusable nappies and to breastfeed, but would be sensible to have some emergency formula, bottles and disposable nappies and wipes.

In the first lockdown it was almost impossible to buy formula for a while. If your wife has any kind of problem with breastfeeding you want to have options.

Also a lot of people start with disposable nappies for those early days when mum is still recovering from birth and the baby is waking up every hour to feed and poop :) you can always switch to reusables when you’re both in the swing of things.

Definitely buy a few sizes of baby clothes, and remember to wash them before baby arrives, babies have very sensitive skin so everything should be washed in non-bio before wearing it. You’ll also want vanish or equivalent for the inevitable poo stains and napisan for hygiene,

[Howallergic]

The things I couldn't get for love nor money during covid were

Toilet rolls
Paracetamol
Pasta
UHT milk
Pesto sauce (the Lidl one - 57p and really tasty)
Tinned toms
Tinned soup
Beans
Disinfectant sprays
Bleach
Handwash (note - buy a big bottle of bubble bath and you can top up your hand dispenser cheaply).
Anything dried and non perishable really

Going to buy a big box of Daz. Will last me a year.


Meat I don't anticipate being a problem as we have British beef and fish similar - same with poultry.

It was dried goods that went last time. I wonder whether fresh food will be more affected this time?

Should probably stock up on light-bulbs and batteries. Must check what battery I need for my thermometer.

Lidl used to do a wind up torch years ago that I had, but moved country and left it behind. Will get that again if they come into Lidl.

[Howallergic]

Oh and balmy tissues for runny noses.

[Howallergic]

And noodles. Sorry, just using this as a list for myself.
Fruit may be an issue post Brexit, so might get some tinned fruit, though never eat it normally.
I'd say we're fairly self contained for yoghurts and anything fresh dairy.