Looking at the 'stockpiling' threads..

[EinsteinaGogo]

Is there genuinely ANYONE who could afford to get a couple of weeks shopping into the house, who hasn't?

And if so, WHY?

Off topic but so many posters on this thread have a pantry, so Mumsnet 😆

[quote toilet]@lyralalala i can't comment on threads from months ago as I wasn't really on here much (key worker so crazy busy) particularly in March. On this thread it seems to be very much preppers blaming others. I'm sorry but I don't accept that not having a 2 wk reserve in is endangering others but miraculously if you have a 2 wk reserve it isn't. You still have to get food after those 2 wks & the virus hasn't gone anywhere. I also don't accept that everyone should prep to reduce shortages, for one surely its far too late now?

I have said upthread I can see why people buy more but I can also see why they don't. Im not sure why that's so controversial. [/quote]
Not having a supply of food can be endangering others if you don't have a way of getting food if you need to isolate or have symptoms.

If you have a cast iron set up of getting others to drop you food then fine. Take your chances.

If you live hundreds of miles from family, don't know anyone locally, have never signed up for deliveries ( a lot of people who didn't use them in March and April don't seem to be grasping how difficult it was in some areas to get a delivery) and you don't? Then yes, you're irresponsible in this current climate because folks who have to go to the shop on the way home to isolate or when they feel ill are endangering people.

[quote toilet]**@CrunchyNutNC* @Yesthesearemymonkeys what would you say @Fbearsmum* is doing? [/quote]
I don't drive and ds is refusing to go on public transport atm so I'm just stocking up on what I can't get delivered just in case. I'm not caffeine free by choice and refuse to pay teapigs prices when the others are just as enjoyable but I do miss dunking a digestive in a mug of builders 😭

@toilet "pantry" is a shortcut word to describe the place you put your food.

@lyralalala of course I'm not referring to breaking isolation for food.

Is it @bellinisurge? My mothers walk in pantry was very much separate to our kitchen cupboards, fridge & freezer all of which we are places we store food in.

"pantry" is a shortcut word to describe the place you put your food.

Interchangeable with "larder" and the norm in Australia.

www.stayathomemum.com.au/houseandhome/organisation/organised-pantries/

[quote toilet]@lyralalala of course I'm not referring to breaking isolation for food.

[/quote]
So then you do accept that for some people not having a 2 week stock of supplies is endangering people then?

Because for some people their options are have the stock or risk breaking isolation. The latter, as the OP said assuming they have the finances and space to store it, is selfish and reckless.

I thought a larder was traditionally for cold produce. I'm sure my grandmother had some kind of large stone in hers to keep meat cool. However my family are European so maybe it's different.

I thought a larder was traditionally for cold produce.

Traditionally. My great aunt had one of those big stones in whatever she called it. I can't remember now.

Knowing how badly Dover will cope (and just how much of our food comes through it), I have prepped our household.I raided our house deposit to do it (after a lengthy discussion with supreme command - my wife - to gain authorisation).

The intention is to have four months of food for the two of us. We are fortunate that we have the money and space to do this. I recognise many can't due to space or finances. The need for us to do so is enhanced by the fact she's five months in with our first child who is expected some time around Valentine's Day.

As of now I reckon we are maybe 80% of the way there after multiple trips to Costco. The usual suspects such as loo rolls, pasta, rice, flour have all been bought in sufficient quantities (36, 15.5 kg, 10kg, 16kg respectively and yes there's enough yeast too). We have over 50 cans of tomatoes (I do the cooking and I make sauces from scratch), there's 2 dozen cans of tinned potatoes which are great in curries or potato salads, lots of cans of soup, 5kg of frozen veg, 7kg of salted butter, 6kg of unsalted butter, 16 litres of Robinson's squash, 15 litres of Oatly milk, several large bottles each of table sauces such as mayo or Tommy k, lots of treats such as chocolate biscuits, enough cleaning products, dishwasher tablets and salt, 8kg of laundry powder, enough stuff for the baby for the first month, canned fruit in case fresh is not possible to at least give wifey a balanced diet in the final few weeks, ditto having enough seeds as they add a lot of helpful things for pregnancy.

I don't view it as stealing from those that don't have their own stash, we've been at this steadily building it up for several months already. Even now rationing is still limited.

@lyralalala I'd wager the numbers of people who only have the binary choice of starvation vs breaking isolation are very small. Has anyone on this thread said they would need to break isolation to get food if they had to isolate but still would choose not to prepare?

and of course there are people who would have stocked cupboards but still chose to break isolation. I don't believe there is a correlation between the law breakers & stocked cupboards.

I could. I haven't. I didn't in March either and we still ate.

@SupplyChainHusband

Knowing how badly Dover will cope (and just how much of our food comes through it), I have prepped our household.I raided our house deposit to do it (after a lengthy discussion with supreme command - my wife - to gain authorisation).

The intention is to have four months of food for the two of us. We are fortunate that we have the money and space to do this. I recognise many can't due to space or finances. The need for us to do so is enhanced by the fact she's five months in with our first child who is expected some time around Valentine's Day.

As of now I reckon we are maybe 80% of the way there after multiple trips to Costco. The usual suspects such as loo rolls, pasta, rice, flour have all been bought in sufficient quantities (36, 15.5 kg, 10kg, 16kg respectively and yes there's enough yeast too). We have over 50 cans of tomatoes (I do the cooking and I make sauces from scratch), there's 2 dozen cans of tinned potatoes which are great in curries or potato salads, lots of cans of soup, 5kg of frozen veg, 7kg of salted butter, 6kg of unsalted butter, 16 litres of Robinson's squash, 15 litres of Oatly milk, several large bottles each of table sauces such as mayo or Tommy k, lots of treats such as chocolate biscuits, enough cleaning products, dishwasher tablets and salt, 8kg of laundry powder, enough stuff for the baby for the first month, canned fruit in case fresh is not possible to at least give wifey a balanced diet in the final few weeks, ditto having enough seeds as they add a lot of helpful things for pregnancy.

I don't view it as stealing from those that don't have their own stash, we've been at this steadily building it up for several months already. Even now rationing is still limited.

Do you think it'll last 4 months though? I know it's going to be shit if there's a no deal, I was hoping food supplies would be a priority.

[quote toilet]@lyralalala I'd wager the numbers of people who only have the binary choice of starvation vs breaking isolation are very small. Has anyone on this thread said they would need to break isolation to get food if they had to isolate but still would choose not to prepare?

[/quote]
Given the number of people on this site who don't answer their door after 6pm, live hundreds of miles from family, don't know their neighbours and are NC with their in laws? I'd say there's a fair few on here.

However, I didn't specify numbers. I was simply replying to your point that stating that it simply doesn't endanger other people. There are situations (the one I mentioned, the people who rely on others, especially older relatives, to go shopping for them if needed, etc) that it does.

@MahaliaJ

Yes logistically its confusing. When did they buy their 2 weeks of food? The day before lockdown (surely panic buying then!) or the week before, in which case they would have had to shop a week into lockdown, like most people?

Eh? No. You build it up over time.

I think some people are confusing ‘enough food that you won’t go hungry for two weeks’ with ‘two weeks of varied and planned food’.

In my case I have stuff in the freezer, pasta, tomatoes and tinned beans/chickpeas. I won’t be hungry but I might be bored. I always have this much food in, and always have done.

Don’t really feel the need this time round. I don’t think there will be the same mad rush. Have my regular online shopping slot booked for the next 4 weeks.

@Northeastmum93

I could but won’t, the shops definitely won’t be closing and it massively fucks things up for people that can’t afford too. I’ll never forget bumping into an old man in Tesco back when all the wank stains bought everything, walking around with an empty basket looking at empty shelves. Completely unnecessary and quite frankly dick ish behaviour...I said what I said!

Sigh.

I have been in a supermarket 4 times since the week before lockdown. No need as my well stocked larder meant that I could survive quite happily on what I had with a delivery every other week.
It sure as shit wasn’t me and the other people who had food in their cupboards who stripped the shelves bare. That’ll be panic buyers.

[quote Bwlch] "pantry" is a shortcut word to describe the place you put your food.

Interchangeable with "larder" and the norm in Australia.

www.stayathomemum.com.au/houseandhome/organisation/organised-pantries/[/quote]
Pantry is for the storage of dried goods like bread and flour, hence pan as in the french ‘pain’.
A larder will usually have a marble shelf and will be cooler for the storage of meat, milk and eggs. Lard and in meat you see.

As it is they are used interchangeably and I refer to mine as a larder even though it is a pantry really.

I started prepping for Brexit around 18 months ago and gradually built up ~ 6 weeks worth of stock which I have maintained ever since.

I didn't specifically prep for the covid panic buying in March (by the time anyone saw that coming it was far too late) but I was extremely glad I had enough in that I could completely avoid the shops until things calmed down.

I wasn't one of those people 'adding just a few extra items and shopping more often', I was able to stay well out of the way, leaving more on the shelves for those who needed it. There were lots of empty shelves near me, I went to my local big tesco to pick up a prescription and it was like locusts had been through. And there was a very noticeable tense atmosphere among shoppers. I live somewhere where things can kick off very easily. At the worst point I reckon we were 1-2 days away from food riots here.

YMMV, I'm sure you live in a lovely jolly village where everyone pulls together and there's never any unpleasantness and never any shortages. Bully for you.

I was also extremely glad I had enough in so I could put an emergency box together for DM when her delivery slot got cancelled with no notice and there were no more available for the forseeable future. Never mind covid, a trip round a supermarket would likely finish her off! Thank goodness she was on the shielding list and got priority slots but that took a few weeks to sort out and in the meantime she was stuck.

And there are a huge number of people who rely on deliveries because they cannot manage going to the shops but who weren't on the shielding list - many of them were reduced to relying on the kindness of non-DBS-checked strangers. This is not a marvellous heartwarming thing, it's shit and it's dangerous. People who hoard delivery slots they don't need (you know who you are) deserve a special place in hell. That's probably a topic for another thread though.

I was glad to also be able to help out next door when they'd been unable to find basic necessities in the shops because the shelves had been stripped and there weren't any delivery slots. Four children and no bog roll is not a recipe for fun.

So I ran my stock down in March and April and built it back up again over the summer when stock was relatively plentiful. I can now stay out of the way of people suddenly realising they could be confined to their homes for up to 14 days, and people suddenly realising brexit has not gone away and we face a cliff edge in 12 1/2 weeks which is likely to cause major supply issues.

I don't feel smug, I feel extremely grateful for the advice of @bellinisurge and other regulars on the preppers board. Thank you from a long-time lurker

I think a lot of the sneering responses on this thread are just whistling in the dark.

Preppers buy the same amount as normal_ , it's just that normal for them is slightly more than they consume in the same period so as to build a buffer.

Exactly this. I don't consider myself a full on prepper, but I always have enough in for a month or so. All things we like to eat, so we rotate stock and eat as we go along.

I live in the Midlands and there were lots of items that were literally impossible to get - yeast, flour, pasta, tinned tomatoes, most meats, tinned veg, eggs, toilet rolls, soap, hand sanitizer.

Lots of frozen foods were in short supply especially veg. Bread also was not that easy to get.

Quite a few neighbours tried all the local supermarkets, so Asda, Morrisons, Tesco, Lidl and Aldi and could not get those items in any of them.

Family in Essex and Hertfordshire said it was the same in both those areas.

Also there were absolutely no deliveries available not even for vulnerable people (quite a few neighbours are classed as vulnerable and could not get one) and impossible to even get click & collect.

Off topic but so many posters on this thread have a pantry, so Mumsnet
It's just quicker to say pantry than 'kitchen cupboards, snack basket, fruit bowl, fridge, and freezer'. It's a catch all for where you store food, at least it is in my area.