Do we actually need to get two weeks of food in?

Well said. It's the panic buying that empties the shop shelves within a few hours. Not just covid, but look at the queues at petrol stations a year or two ago re the Iraq war.

That wasn’t an unforeseen emergency. That was due to governmental incompetence and political ideology.

Yeah, you see the thing about disruptions is by their nature no one knows how long they are going to last. The gov doesn’t post a message saying “Please be advised, this latest Russian cyber attack is scheduled to last 3 days”. When things happen, people panic. They panic buy and strip the shelves and you don’t have petrol or bread or toilet roll for week. Honestly were you living in a cave during covid? During the recent Iran conflict?

I went to the shops. There were bare shelves for tinned things, pasta, rice etc but the fresh food supply was always fine.

Have you so quickly forgotten the empty shelves in all supermarkets at the start of covid??

As we found at the start of covid, there's no resilience in the food supply chain. So if a major supermarket "goes down" for more than a day or two, all the others soon run short of food too as the supply chain can't ramp up production and deliveries soon enough. The remaining 4 big chains can't suddenly cope with a 25% increase in demand (assuming the "down" supermarket customers spread themselves evenly over the other 4!). Small shops would soon run out too as they have even slower supply chains and less stock in warehouses/store rooms. A bit of panic buying and the shelves soon become empty.

That wasn’t an unforeseen emergency. That was due to governmental incompetence and political ideology.

You’re in a very unusual and privileged position that doesn’t apply to the vast majority of the country

I am aware of that. Hence the “We”.

However, it is still possible for most people to cook without electricity. It may take a degree of self reliance. A concept alien to some.

One local shop? Yes. The local shop, and Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, M&S. all of the corner shops and the mini supermarkets all running out of all foods so quickly that people cannot buy anything at all and must starve for three days because they didn’t stockpile noodles and beans? No, I think it’s ridiculous.

Well if you're old enough to remember news footage in the 80s of the soviet union, people were queuing for hours for shops which had almost empty shelves, so while extreme, it does happen

I'm not sure why we have to stock up on food to be honest. I'm 5 minutes from a supermarket which I kind of use as my pantry anyway so in an emergency I'd just pop down there and get stuff. Wouldn't store it all at home "just in case".

There are, I'd say, millions of people in this country who have access to things like log burners, gas hobs fed from bottles or tanks, camping equipment, BBQs etc and if they don't they probably have family/neighbours who do who would likely help them out in this sort of scenario.

One local shop? Yes. The local shop, and Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, M&S. all of the corner shops and the mini supermarkets all running out of all foods so quickly that people cannot buy anything at all and must starve for three days because they didn’t stockpile noodles and beans? No, I think it’s ridiculous.

If Visa went down then people would withdraw cash.

It would be highly unlikely that there’d be five separate successful attacks on five different supermarkets simultaneously. But even if there was, that still leaves the other supermarkets and all of the independent shops. No one would need to reply on tins and dried food.

@FoolMeTwice2 Do you also keep medicines etc?

My children have moved out, but are always joking that they will just go shopping in our garage (which they sometimes do..we seem to go through a lot of pesto!)..

Quite the opposite.You have sensible advice and facts from so many posters, far from emotional at all. You should do what you believe in though.

Mobile food cans were deployed, people were given vouchers to use at pubs and restaurants with generators, leisure centres with generators were used etc

Why would you want to waste emergency resources that could be used for people that really need it, just because you are lazy and couldn’t be arsed to help yourself and others? Incredibly selfish behaviour.

Or a single cyber attack targeting Visa and 80% of card payments stop working. Or 5 attacks targeted at the the big 5 supermarkets only. Put those out of commission and the country starves.
People don’t realise just how incredibly vulnerable we are in this country.

Can you think of any scenario where all food vanishes from the shelves of all shops simultaneously?

How do I cook the food without electricity and gas? Please do tell me?

Why are people buying dried noodles or beans? They will not be able to cook them.

Sounds like everyone could stick a loaf of bread in the freezer and be sorted.

I don’t understand why you’re upset. The whole point of this thread is to discuss whether there is a need to stockpile food. People seem to be strangely emotionally attached to the idea but cannot explain how it would actually help anyone at all.

You seriously can’t conceive of a situation where your local shop might run low or run out of supplies?

But it would have to be a cyber attack that affected every single shop selling food in the country which seems unlikely.

If the electricity is down in the shops how will we cook the food?

It is possible to cook food without electricity.

”We” are lucky, our cooker is LPG and failing that we can cook on a wood fired stove indoors. Plus, we have a public water pump fed from a spring in the road outside. We also have a generator and numerous oil lamps, but sadly not an infinite supply of fuel.