"Graphista. I think that poor maintanance of stores is definitley a big issue all supermarkets need to work on, ours are in shocking states however the newly refurbished ones are amazing." I don't understand why they allow them to fall into such states of disrepair, it surely cannot make sense business wise as it will cost them more long term to fix when it reaches a point where it can no longer be ignored?
Regarding fridges and freezers - surely shops in hotter countries/areas (I say areas thinking of USA where it's not the whole country with a hotter climate as it's such a big country, I'm sure it's not the only country where this is the case) face the same issues and yet I'd find it hard to believe if they were using ones that were constantly breaking down
"But freezer stock for Iceland and Farm foods, is 90% of what they sell, so they have to prioritise maintaining and stocking the freezers." That doesn't really excuse why other stores can't do the same.
"the big stores didn't want to spend what they really needed to."
That doesn't surprise me
"Even if you make allowances for events such as heatwaves, it doesn't explain why supermarkets are so bad at stock control generally." I'd agree with this. Again the local Tesco has regularly had problems running out of what I and most others would consider basics - bread, milk, butter/spreads, cheese, cereal... Not due to a particular "run" on things just poor organisation.
They've also been gradually stocking less of the cheaper own brand ranges of products, instead stocking premium own brand or famous brand products which are bloody expensive! - that's caused a local outcry as its a seriously deprived area - not showing their knowledge of the local demographic there!
"Also not clear how this has anything to do with Brexit since it has been this way for a long time." The point re brexit is if they cannot organise themselves during "normal" operating periods what the hell is likely to happen if we have a no deal/crap deal brexit causing delays/disruption in importing? And it's not only European goods that come to us via Europe though they're a significant amount of our imports but as has been discussed at length on brexit threads, most of our goods from elsewhere in the world ALSO come VIA European trade routes, we don't always import directly from USA, New Zealand, South Africa etc.
Bellinisurge is very knowledgeable on this - it's certainly been an eye opener for me too! It's why some of us have made the decision to create as much of a stockpile as we're able to, in order to give ourselves at least a little breathing space in case of problems. There's a good few very informative threads on this.
"But it hasn't happened" YET! We're not saying it's to blame for current shortages, we're saying it shows how delicately managed & precarious the supply chain actually is.