Is there anything you haven't been able to buy today (other than petrol)?

[Poetrypatty]

I went in two different supermarkets to buy apples today and there weren't any

Ocado couldn't deliver me rösti potatoes (part of a meal deal, so wasn't bothered about their absence) or some breaded chicken on my £100+ order. I suspect my local warehouse isn't overly busy because I've been getting free delivery recently.

We have a veg stall, butcher and local convenience stores within staggering distance so we're not going to starve. I've not noticed any shortages of milk/dairy.

It seems to be the big food chains that are struggling with deliveries (perhaps they use bigger HGVs or have really tight margins).

When I was little, before we joined the EU, there were lots of conversations along the lines of 'I couldn't get pork chops so got braising steak', 'I couldn't find any cabbage so I picked up a cauliflower', 'it'll be a few weeks as they're waiting for a part', 'I've been all over looking for that, and I can't find it anywhere' etc etc etc.

Looks like it's going to go back to that.

And if it does go back to that, it's usually women that doing the shopping, the ordering and meal planning. It's usually women sorting out school supplies and uniform or sorting stuff for the house. It won't be Boris queueing because there's a good deal on washing powder.

We've been pretty lucky here, but I can see a lot of gaps. There were a lot of gaps in the nappy section on Monday in Tesco, and that must be hard on parents.

I went to order my cats food yesterday and hardly any left on the online store I use. Managed to get some stuff but not the usual cat food. I would say 70% of the items were out of stock. And bizarrely no potatoes yesterday, but I only went to 1 shop. Will try again today.

@Tyredofallthis1 I just remember back then and shopping. Fruit available was apples, bananas and oranges, seasonal pears and satsumas at Christmas and strawberries at Christmas. Fresh figs, blueberries, mangos etc were exotic fruit only available in the specialist shop in major cities. I really hope we don't go back to that. My mum used to go to a specialist Italian deli to buy spaghetti.
No one starved, but we did not have a great choice of ingredients.

@julieca I was telling my son that a cookbook I bought in the early eighties had addresses where you could write to if you wanted to buy garlic. I also remember at the same time someone not knowing that you could eat sweet peppers because they had only seen it as garnish (my mother was adventurous so I had eaten it in salad).

I don't think we're going to go back to that, but it looks like the days of everything being always available are gone, at least for a while.

@Tyredofallthis1 I remember in the nineties going to Wales on holiday and not being able to find garlic anywhere in the town I was staying.
I agree we are not going to back to the lack of choice of the 70's, but I suspect younger people take for granted the wide range of choices we do have. I don't want us to have less choice. I like cooking with what would have been exotic ingredients in the fairly recent past. It makes food more interesting.

In a similar vein...

In the third week of August, two weeks before the start of term, I went to get a blazer for son as he had grown out of his. There are two shops that sell the school blazer, and it's all distinctive so you can't just buy a school patch and sew it on one from M&S like my mother did.

We go to the shop, look for a medium (son in Yr 10, so a middling sort of size likely to be needed by a lot of pupils) and they had sold out. One of only two that sell this, the most popular shop to go to, had sold out of a common size a fortnight before the start of term. The school is horrifically strict on uniform, the old blazer was barely fit for cleaning rags and the uniform shop told me that they weren't getting another shipment for three months.

Husband working from home broke off to ring the other shop and check to see if they had the size, and reserved one. I drove forty minutes to pick it up.

I think that we are going to have to stay ahead of the game in all sorts of ways from school stuff to foods. It's not going to stay this bad. I don't think that it's going to go back to how it was before Brexit and Covid, though.

Contact lenses
Cat food
Sparkling water

Not today as haven't been shopping, but Tescos are regularly out of stock of a cereal we all like, toilet rolls I prefer and the only acceptable choice for my cats. I've cottoned on to this, so once back in stock I get a couple of packets, oh and enough cat food for 2-3 weeks supply (I do buy the latter over 2-3 days so I'm not leaving someone else without cat food!).

Small cartons of apple/orange etc juice for lunch boxes. Nothing in Sainsbury's or Asda for the last few weeks.

Sparkling water (been like that for ages now)
No carrots
Hardly any Avocados
Limited range of apples, berries and tropical fruits
Hardly any pasties
Hardly any milk
Limited bread range like crumpets/pancakes/muffins/bagels.

Frozen Quorn products, everywhere! Some things (e.g. the nuggets) almost everywhere has, but I can't get a roast or any pies for love nor money and the crispy fillets are pretty rare too.

And this may or may not be anything to do with Brexit / driver shortages etc but Waitrose have stopped doing their lovely fresh blueberry muffins, only plasticky prepackaged ones now. Not impressed.

Nars tinted moisturiser.

Been out of stock for weeks.

I was in a Lidl today and they had lots of sparkling water and was starting to refill all the fizzy cans from what I could see. So all hope is not lost.

UHT semi skimmed.

Washing powder in Aldi last night

Quite surprised by how much milk has been popping up. You'd think they would prioritise it.

I got what I needed today but I did notice big holes on the shelves ...esp bread....milk.....cakes....loo rolls..tissues ....frozen veg ..there were some of these things but not the usual choice and quantity

@Poetrypatty

Quite surprised by how much milk has been popping up. You'd think they would prioritise it.

who are "they"? and what do you mean by "prioritise it"

Maybe it doesn't exist? It cant be delivered if it isn't there.

I know lorry drivers who are commenting on about not being able to pick up full loads. Even if they do a delivery, they are not doing a full delivery

who are "they"? and what do you mean by "prioritise it"

Presumably the haulage companies, at the supermarkets' request. I obviously don't know how the delivery system works, but the basics like bread, potatoes and milk must be prioritised somehow.

It's safe to say there's a steady and unstoppable supply of milk. Dairy at least, I imagine imported alternatives are less consistent.

DP took me up the Aldi today after a big morning out at the hospital, and we couldn't find any coffee, but I suspect that's because we're hopeless tbh.

They had Chardonnay though. And lots of fruit and vegetables.

Been looking at buying a new mattress and most on 11-22 week delivery. I think it was IKEA that said that actually said that there is a shortage of them. Also went for car mot yesterday was looking forward to my free hot choc and muffins but the drinks area was empty just couple of cups of black coffee and tea and water!!!

That's a long wait for a mattress Ladybird69!

LubaLuca yes exactly