To wish people would stop being such selfish fucking bellends.

[Soapytoad]

That’s it really. Everyone else has to KEEP going to the shops to try and find essentials because the fucking knobheads have bough and keep buying up everything.

How can you social distance when you have to constantly hop from shop to shop for basic food for your children?! I’m in the shops more now than I was before this shitshow started.

I couldn’t give a fuck if I got Covid-19, but I don’t want my kids getting it, ever. I have to leave them at home while I go out! I live rurally so no take away, no drliveroo, no community and only 2 towns 15 miles in opposite directions. Still no fucking toilet roll, still no basic veg oil, no hand sanitiser, no basic vegetables, no meat. My kids eat before I do do at least I’m losing weight now, and we have now discovered those birds eye chicken burgers approved by mumsnet. (They are amazing btw!)

Fuck off selfish people and stop putting everyone else at risk you fucking selfish, fucking boggely eyed cuntvid pisswesels.

@userxx No idea, there was plenty on the shelves and I didn’t go early either.

Yep we are told to avoid shops but when you do go the shelves are empty and you either have to go to other places to get what you need or continue going back on the offchance. Not what we're supposed to be doing at the minute at all!

I think now that the supermarkets have cracked down on the amount of people allowed in store it's giving staff more chance to restock the shelves and yesterday, after weeks of trying, I finally managed to get hand soap and pasta! So hopefully things are improving a bit.

People don’t realise how supply chains work either, because people panic bought pasta and flour quite early, that meant retailers ordered more from suppliers who ordered more raw ingredients from their suppliers. Now retailers are having problems getting hold of eggs because they’re a raw ingredient of pasta and bread manufacturers have struggled to get hold of flour so now there’s less bread on the shelves. If people had just shopped normally there wouldn’t be a problem now and supermarkets wouldn’t be restricting things, even if people just picked up a few extra bits to last 2 wks instead of 1 (which hasn’t helped), but lots and lots of people were buying an extremely large amount of food and consumables.

Well YANBU at all but is the issue regional?

All the supermarkets here are calm & fully stocked! We live in a city surrounded by small towns & countryside.

It was chaos & empty last week. But food supply has returned to normality here.

Remember that people are not likely to be panic buying either. Just picking up extra milk for vulnerable/ elderly family members.

Wish we could compile a real time map of where the food shortages are! Would be intentional see....

But probably pointless

Interesting to see** not intentional

I can understand make up aisles being blocked. It's the type of product that is often picked up to be looked at/checked colours and put back repeated times plus the testers are germ magnets.

We are a family of 4, usually 2 adults eating at least 1 meal at work. Then nusery/school. Being home all day every day obviously needs us to have more food than we normally would in the house.

I stockpiled about 3 weeks worth of food back in February (I work in a field where I saw this coming months ago and assumed we would be at home 8-12 weeks at some point, I have an underlying health condition). But I am now doing a Tesco order every two weeks and spending a massive amount of money (£150/200) because that’s how much food it takes to feed 4 people 3 meals a day plus snacks and shampoo/soap/etc every single day for 2 weeks. But we’ve also found it’s cheaper to get some things from smaller shops (fruit and veg boxes from a wholesaler that normally sells to restaurants or school caterers). I got 25 kg of potatoes for £13 which is much cheaper than any shop.

But I don’t know how you self isolate for 12 weeks with a health condition if you can’t buy loads of food every few weeks. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@sunfloweryy so it wasn't baked beans that was limited to 2 per person?

@Soapytoad,have you tried the corner shops in the 2 towns you're going to? All the ones by me have basics like bread, milk & tins & price on par with Asda. Can't face the supermarket at moment, so I'm using recently massively extended corner shop, as it has butchers counter now. Poundland are also restocking daily & the panic buying has stopped there too.

If people had just shopped normally there wouldn’t be a problem now

It’s been pretty clearly explained by numerous posters on this thread why there is a problem - people have to buy more food from supermarkets because all the other options such as restaurants, some takeaways, schools and work canteens are no longer available. If the figure upthread was correct, that people previously got their 30% of their food intake from other sources than supermarkets then it’s obvious that they would have to increase their normal shop just to keep pace.

I’ve seen quite a few posts on social media where wholesale food suppliers are offering their services to the general public, and equally I’m sure the supermarkets will be looking to take over some of their supplies. It just can’t happen overnight.

And the panic buying has been over the last two or three weekends - that’s all.

I’m generally managing okay with the thought of not being able to do anything for the next few weeks/months but I find it so disconcerting going to the shops now. I went to a big supermarket last week for the first time during lockdown, and couldn’t get pasta, chopped tomatoes or chicken. The thing that really irritated me was no washing up liquid!!! Who has been panic buying Fairy???

Thank you for your very kind responses, @twinkledag @foamrolling and @poppadopolis .

Apologies for late reply, but l was at work til late last night, then been to work again today.

lt's all very organised now, l've had a lot of people use the word 'civilised' which is how it feels, in the main.
No more strops over "3 of each item only" except a minor spat last night when l had 3 adults doing one shop (why, l have no idea. They didn't have a huge amount of shopping, and one of them could have managed it). They had 4 of one item, and when l said they were only allowed 3, the woman said "We are shopping for 3 households here!"
Well in that case, love, use the dividers. l'm not a mind reader and l can't be expected to know that. lf it's true.

l have noticed a couple of families in today, though. One lady had her daughter with her, she looked about seven, and she stood with her hands on the checkout. We're having them cleaned regularly, but her mother didn't know that. She didn't tell the little girl not to touch anything. l felt obliged to say "Don't put your hands on the checkout, pet" to her.
Another woman had a smaller girl with her. While the mother stood and let her, the little one picked up toys off the shelf, ran her hands all over the display, and the mother didn't say a word.

Most people have been fine, with the exception of those who don't seem to grasp the concept of the 2 metre rule - we've got yellow tape at 2m intervals at the checkouts, and also a large blue dot (about a foot across) for customers to stand on while the previous customer is packing and paying for their shopping. l've lost count of the amount of people l've had to ask to move back, some have needed asking/telling several times.
Unfortunately it does seem to be the older customers (l'm 61 myself, l'm not being ageist) who don't understand it.
l had one very old couple at my checkout today, they must have been in their 80s, and both very frail. They really shouldn't have been out, but of course l don't know their circumstances. Our supervisor had to ask them several times to observe the social distancing. When they were ready to pay, the woman was standing right in front of me, leaning over the checkout. Both myself and the supervisor had asked her three times to stay behind the line at the back of the till to use the card payment machine. l asked her again, and she leaned right over, about 6" away from my face, and said "What?"
l've concerns for myself, but more for them. They were both so fragile and it really wasn't safe for them being out, especially bearing in mind their apparent obliviousness to the dangers.

Then, about half past three, not long before we were closing, a man came to my checkout. He was fine, observed the distancing, until he was paying for his shopping, when he said cheerily "l've just come back from Mexico this morning!"
My face must have been a picture, because he added "Well, we had to go! Or we'd have lost all our money!"

This is what we're up against. Most people are absolutely fine, very appreciative of us, and patient when having to queue and wait. But then you get people like that. l have to admit, it's spooked me a bit.

Katseyes7 I just don't understand people. My mother is treating a trip out to Tesco as a bit of a jolly. She's walking distance and won't stop going. Keeps telling me she has plenty of food in, yet every time I speak to her she has been over there.
I will happily bring her stuff, it's a 40 mile round trip but not a problem, she lies to me saying she hasn't been and then slips up when she mentions buying a newspaper or milk.
I spoke to her on Friday and she said she hadn't been to the shop for days, then mentioned how busy it was, when I challenged her she said she didn't go in as it was busy, so we f to her friend's house for a cup of tea instead.
Her ongoing theme is "oh, I don't think it's as bad as they are making out in Italy" " it will all blow ovef soon" and "I know you think I'm stupid...."

People are stupid, so many of them are. But also there's the "well I don't know anyone who's had it, so I'm not likely to get it, and it's only like the flu after all so won't be that bad"

I'm so angry that it's still being likened to flu - too many people think "flu" is like a bad cold, which it isn't - and I'm sure that has radically affected people's understanding of how dangerous it potentially is.