To be surprised that some friends are buying extra food because of Brexit?

[abacucat]

I suspect that specific foods may get be in short supply for a short period of time, but there will still be plenty of food in the shops. It is not going to be Armageddon. So this seemed an over reaction to me. Or am I going to be that person in the disaster movie who is laughing saying everyone is over reacting, who ends up dead when the disaster finally hits?

@Clavinova - who are "the poor" for heaven's sake?
And the whole "must have bendy bananas" rubbish was debunked years ago as a myth.

It sounds ridiculous, I know.

Agreed. I sat with DH to make the list of what we want to lace in stock and just kept thinking “I shouldn’t be having to do this”. But I also have a good grasp of JIT delivery systems and the legal impact of a hard Brexit. So off I go to buy more bits on the list.

There are many ways the government could have done Brexit competently. They chose an alternative route.

Amazing how many armchair WTO and trade and logistics experts we had in the UK and we didn't ever realise! Just think what we could have done as a nation if you'd all come forward before now!

People did. Its just they were ignored. Also see people warning that it wasn't easy for NI and that might be a can of worms.

I remember plenty of discussion of JIT with regard to the motor industry. Less so with food but it did happen.

No one talked about WTO though because Boris etc el were still taking about a Norway style deal or a Swiss option themselves. So that wasn't in the public consciousness and clearly given how Boris and Nigel have changed their minds they didn't have a fucking clue what they were talking about at the ref and quite frankly given what they've said subsequently they still don’t! Both are renowned for being lazy fuckers who don't research things and just bluff their way through though.

People have read up on WTO since the ref. It was never presented as an option to the electorate or part of national debate. What has been in the press including particularly the BBC has been staggeringly inaccurate or misleading because politicians haven't been challenged when spouting guff. Cos apparently that's political bias (WTO rules don't change because politicians don't know how they work properly and a journalists job is to understand and point out inaccuries)

It is perfectly possible to trade with EU member states, and to do so quickly, whether a country is in the EU or not

Of course the UK will continue to trade with the Eu and elsewhere - but that is not the immediate problem.

If the capacity of the Channel ports is reduced by 60% - 70%, then finished food products and ingredients for UK-produced food will become less available than before Brexit. The UK can buy all it wants but there won't be the physical means to import more than a fraction of current volumes.

As an aside, March and April are the worst months of the year to be facing a shortage of imported food. UK winter crops are exhausted and 80% of fresh fruit and veg needs to be imported during this period.

Oh and I discovered I REALLY want a milky drink at times

We produce plenty of liquid milk for drinking, but some posters have pointed out that there may be a problem with packaging the milk:

The UK is the third-largest milk producer in the EU after Germany and France, and the tenth-largest producer in the world
• The UK produced 14.6 billion litres of milk in 2014, the highest annual figure since 1990. (liquid consumption was only 7,028 million litres in 2014).
• In 2014, the UK had a negative trade balance in butter and cheese, but a positive trade balance in milk and cream.
There is little overseas trade in liquid milk, but considerable trade in processed products. In 2013, only 1.3% of liquid milk produced in the EU was exported

Not my point at all.

It wAs illustrative of having a store cupboard for personal preference ratget than believing it will help in a starvation scenario.

There are no regulations, EU or otherwise, stopping supermarkets or anybody selling "wonky" fruit and veg.
EU standards designate categories, eg Grade 1, Grade 2 and so on. That way purchasers can be confident in the quality they get for their money.
Supermarkets prefer well shaped, blemish free produce because their customers say they do. However many customers in Morrisons and other shops are happy to pay a bit less for produce that doesn't meet the standards.
It's annoying hearing "EU regulations" being blamed for things we have control over. Similarly, I heard reported on the radio today that we would soon have the "right to repair" as Government would legislate to ensure manufactured items could be easily repaired, rather than replaced. No mention that this is an EU initiative (might annoy some manufacturers, though).

Sorry Red, I was being sarcastic about the ones that clearly haven't read a thing about it, yet seem to think they know everything.

... Not the ones who actually have read up and are trying to point out the issues.

And the whole "must have bendy bananas" rubbish was debunked years ago as a myth

Apparently not...
I've reached my article limit with The Grocer - but as at June 2018 - wonky fruit and veg was present in 12% of all shopping baskets at Morrisons.
www.andnowuknow.com/quick-dish/aldi-launches-new-range-misshapen-produce/laura-hillen/55052
www.producebusinessuk.com/insight/insight-stories/2017/11/03/morrisons-add-ugly-apples-to-wonky-produce-range
www.tescoplc.com/news/news-releases/2018/new-wonky-fruit-and-veg-juice-range-launched-at-tesco/

Asda’s range is very much in demand despite being slightly more expensive, as it claims it’s now sold 1,000 tonnes of carrots that “would otherwise have been rejected as less than perfect”

borntobequiet I thought the bendy bananas went because straighter ones cost less to store and transport - you can fit more in to a box. I remember when they changed and there was a lot of unhappiness from consumers about bananas becoming straighter.

You lot are the reason Ocado is out of most of the tinned fruit that was on my brexit prep list! At this point only a fool wouldn't start stockpiling some basics.

@Clavinova - I meant, as you well know, the idea of a EU ban on non-standard bananas was absolute rubbish. If the consumer was foolish enough to press for perfect looking produce that's hardly the EU's fault.

I had a Tesco delivery last night

out of own brand baked beans
out of tinned rice pudding
out of own brand spaghetti
out of own brand cream crackers
out of cod liver oil tablets

Might be coincidence but might be as a result of more people stocking up.

Bendy bananas

Curved bananas have not been banned. In fact, as with the supposed banning of curved cucumbers, the Commission regulation classifies bananas according to quality and size for the sake of easing the trade of bananas internationally.

And:

Bananas are classified according to quality and size for international trade. Individual governments and the industry have in the past had their own standards with the latter’s, in particular, being very stringent. The European Commission was asked by national agriculture ministers and the industry to draft legislation in this area. Following extensive consultation with the industry, the proposed quality standards were adopted by national ministers in Council in 1994.

Both extracts from the EU Myth Busters page.

blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

Well.....let's all look back to December 31,1999 when the pessimists were busy, busy, busy forecasting that on the dot of midnight the Millennium Bug would fell all the computers on the planet and civilisation would vanish in a nano-second.

Not.A.Thing.Happened.

You.need.to.read.the.thread.and.educate.yourself.as.to.why.this.was.

HTH

Oh my god ralfeesmumdo do some reading. That has been debunked so many times. Literally painful to see it brought up again. Not the same in so many different ways.

@ralfeesmum - because it was sorted out well in advance by people working hard behind the scenes with plenty of advance warning .
Unlike. Fucking. No. Deal.

^Millenium bug ! Double bingo!

Ach @2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney , you called it first 👍

The millennium bug was a simple potential single point of failure problem replicated on a very large scale which was acknowledged and planned for by governments.

Brexit is a multi failure point event. Its more like thousands of potential millennium bugs. Except some of those problems have no been planned for by government, indeed some have not yet properly been acknowledged or identified by government.

There is no comparison. The scale of Brexit v the Millennium bug alone is hugely different. And the level of planning are from different planets.

Unless you think health and safety risk assessment of children falling in the playground is comparible to the health and safety risk assessment of running a nuclear power plant.

Which I'm guessing lots of people do, because all red tape = bad.

Actually as I have recounted before this household did have millennium bugs: hundreds of them -head lice ! the worst I have ever found just. before a large party we were all going to thst night. I ended up shaving my sons head. It was horrific!

It is amazing now many people spout stuff like "leaving on WTO terms" who would never have heard of the WTO two years ago (and still know nothing about it...)

We don't have much storage space (or money) to build up a big stash, but I have started to build up a crate of food under my bed in case of no deal chaos. I am only storing things with a long shelf life and which I would eat anyway. So if this turns out to be a panic over nothing then I will eat it all anyway. If we get a bit closer to the date and there is still no deal then I will think about getting in some things that I might not normally buy like tinned fruit and uht milk.

I think that if there is no deal then there would be a bit of chaos at the supermarkets - think snow day / christmas eve / fuel shortages all rolled into one. If that happens then I want to be able to avoid the shops for a few weeks. If it lasts any longer than that then I will run out of prescription meds so I will be doomed anyway.