To think that people don't seem to have noticed that the shelves are empty. ?

[Finknottlesnewt]

I have just popped into my local co-op (decent sized supermarket not a corner shop) . I wanted a chicken to roast, some Maris piper potatoes and some frozen peas... nothing. In fact no frozen veg. No pork as a chicken substitute. Salad potatoes but nothing I could roast.

I went to Tesco and got the last chicken. Also successful with Potatoes but no frozen peas.

I am not after unicorn tears. I mean it doesn't get much more normal than chicken spuds and peas. ! Tesco had NO fruit and (much to the consternation of many in the queue) only about 4 packets of cigarettes - none of which were the variety people were after.

Am I just living in a very badly affected area (rural southeast) .. or is anyone else starting to find this worrying ?

I went to our local huge Asda today and no noticeable gaps. I did a full weekly shop for 5 of us and there was nothing I couldn’t find.

I live not too far away from @Friendofdennis, and it's been a similar story here. Shelves devoid of fizzy water, and not as broad a selection of produce. Broccoli seems to be a big one, constantly empty shelves in that section of Tesco. No bananas at all a week or two ago, or fresh fruit. Popped into Lidl on my way to work yesterday and they had no baked goods in their pastry section at all as the delivery hadn't arrived.

An acquaintance is a bus driver who does the occasional HGV stint, and he posted a rant on social media a few days ago about the major problems of coming back into the U.K. through Port de Calais, though he didn't say what those issues were - am assuming paperwork, but obviously don't know for sure.

Local rumour has it that the reason our bins haven't been collected for the last two weeks is that the bin drivers have been poached to become HGV drivers. No idea at all if that's the case, but it was published in a local paper (that very much doesn't make it true, however!).

[quote ShinyMagnemite]This has been an issue for months in my corner of the southeast, and has been gradual and random - one week there'll be no pasta or flour, another there'll be no baby wipes and no French cheese. The result is an unreliability of supply, and increasingly an acceptance of that unreliability.

People will tell you that it's Covid, but it's not, it's Brexit.

This was predictable, and, in fact, was predicted: medium.com/nodust-on-brexit/on-shortages-8-lessons-from-another-life-16b7bbcc00fe[/quote]
This is true. Covid, followed by the Suez issue is being held responsible for everything.

I should have had a bathroom fitted 8 weeks ago and the company can't get the materials. All down to Suez, they tell me...

Well I think I have worked out why there is no pork /chicken to be had in either my local co-op or Tesco.

It's not just delivery but the whole supply chain. Huge lack of staff on the farms , slaughterhouses, processing plants , packing and delivery. All jobs normally filled by European work force and not wanted by locals despite increased wage offers.

Also explains why there is such a lack of veg fresh or frozen.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/27/worker-shortages-leave-uk-farms-with-70000-surplus-pigs

All made up though ! Nothing to see here . 🙈🙉🙊

All made up though ! Nothing to see here

I can only comment on my own area and the only thing we’re missing is flavoured water!

Yes we have had no green bin collection for a month and won’t have another collection until 2022!

Not enough drivers. EU drivers can’t or don’t want to come here anymore.

Brexit, innit?

Be careful what you wish for.

Covid hasn't helped, obviously.

Nor have the NEver GivenA Fuck tankers stuck in the Suez Canal.

Merseyside, big Tesco this evening no bananas whatsoever, significant gaps in lots of other areas too including cooked meat, any kind of cordial in plastic bottles and beer.

Also what other posters have said of lots of the same item being spread out to hide gaps.

Still at least if there were bananas I'd be able to buy them in pounds.....

I’m in the SE too and shelves were full of pretty much every fruit vegetable and foods you could possibly want!

No frozen veg at all available on my Morrison's order today. Very little cheese. Assume it's the dry ice shortage mentioned upthread.

Only thing I couldn’t get this evening was swede which I thought was really odd as I wouldn’t think there’d be a rush on it!

Similar case to PP here: huge gaps appear but in different areas on a weekly basis. You could almost play “guess the vanished food aisle” bingo or something.

On recent visit to Waitrose the entire chocolate bar aisle was empty with only a couple of lonely packs of Mars bars remaining. A week before that Marks had, literally, no milk at 3pm in the afternoon. A week before that they had milk but their entire supply of frozen fish - breaded and battered - was absent. Just an empty freezer.

This is in the South-west.

Absolutely no sign of this in Cornwall. The only substitutions I've had in last couple of months of shopping deliveries are chives and a specific hair conditioner. Nothing noticed in local Coop for top up shops either. Popped up today for curry ingredients - fully stocked.

OP, why so snippy?

It's not that people aren't noticing the shelves are empty, it's just that they're perhaps not in your supermarkets, looking at the shelves you are? I'm in Wales, the supermarkets here seem ok but I suppose that could change at some point.

There's a huge shortage of drivers across the whole of the UK as well as general labour shortages. I imagine the Brexit hunters will be on to whinge but they always are.

central southern england. Large town.

I've noticed lots of gaps but nothing like your experience OP.
Shopping online, large shop for family of 5. a dozen or so things not available, but I found lots of substitutes.

When I went in to different shops, gaps visible, but not whole sections.
(apart from paracetamol, which I think was as much due to the fact that everyone is ill!)

Organic chicken, lettuce, cucumbers and binbags have been the most annoying missing things for me. But there have been lots of other random missing things which change from week to week, which means I've had to start shopping in person again in order to make sensible choices about what I can actually make with what's in the shop. It is nearly all perishable stuff apart from the binbags which have been really annoying my by their absence. I got 200 from Amazon in the end.

This has been in the news several times and if you Google it there is plenty of logistics experts saying that we need to start getting skies in now for class to avoid having to go short closer to the time. A few of the men in family work as Hgv drivers and are absolutely snowed under with work and doing every second of over time they can. Not through choice but because of a huge shortage of drivers. No drivers, no deliveries.

I've noticed nurse differences in my local Asda. Very short on fizzy drinks, not seen any own brand caffeine free Diet Coke for months and even CF Pepsi and Coke Is very rarely in stock. Fruit and veg is patchy, I've got lots of Guinea pigs and didn't see courgettes for a week, nor romaine. Bagged salads were short but apparently that's linked to the drivers shortages in that the shelf life is so short the factories are just binning them when a lorry doesn't turn up for collection, my BIL sent ea photo of the giant waste bins when he did a collection 😞. Tinned veg, my DNs are very restricted and couldn't get their favourite tins but thankfully we had 6 already.

I'm always ready for Xmas pretty early but this year I will be getting all my meat by mid November and freezing it. All my ambient stored stuff like the pop tarts I buy the kids for their stocking etc and boxes of chocolates. Veg will be ordered from my local farm and I'm a regular so will be ok . But I feel very sorry for people that maybe can't get food in in bits and bob's before hand. Especially as toy shortages are also forecast too.

I’m in Edinburgh & no issues in my area

I'm just not seeing any shortages (Manchester) I popped into Tesco today on my lunch break, shelves full of food.

Tonight's Asda delivery of about 7-10 days worth had only one substitution, orange and mango squash instead of tropical. I think we'll cope!

Have been noticing this for a good couple of months.

I do online delivery but there's always loads of whole product lines unavailable. Sometimes they'll be back in stock the following week, but for example, there hasn't been a standard size cauliflower available for months!

Frozen peas another big one and minced beef.

In London I've not really noticed anything here - veg and fruit have sometimes been a bit short late in the day on a weekend, but that's often the case anyway.

I think things may be a bit more spaced out on shelves to cover slight shortages in volume in some places, but not seen anything like lines of empty shelves. I don't know if London gets off easily due to proximity to big container ports of something.

Only shop I’ve seen with an issue is sainbos. Aldi, co op, Tesco etc all seem to have plenty here.

I did read that no one will run out of food, but there might be a lot less choice of food.

Only shop I've been in with empty shelves recently is Lidl. I do a weekly shop online with Asda and actually think they've been better than usual with no substitutions/unavailable items at all for the last 3 weeks which is v unusual!
Went to Morrisons today and everything was fully stocked.

@Finknottlesnewt

I am seeing none of this in Aldi, Iceland, or Lidl. Plenty of everything. Only the 'BIG' stores seem to be having this 'problem' with supplies.

Like Maccies has no milk shakes or ice creams, and hasn't had for about 3 weeks. Yet, the little independent cafes in my local market town have ice creams/sundaes/knickerbocker glorys etc in abundance.

Problem is the bigger places put all their eggs in one basket, and there's no joined-up thinking. Smaller companies, and the stores that are not part of the main 4 or 5, seem to have no issues at all with supplies.

So, yep there are shortages, but not, it seems from shops and stores who pay their delivery drivers decent wages... Time for the bigger stores to pull their finger out, realise they cannot pay non-British workers peanuts anymore, and accept that they have to actually pay real wages.

So IME, it's not so much the areas, but the stores.

Perfectly understandable that some people may not have experienced food shortages though, and that you yourself have Finknottlesnewt

You sound like you don't believe people saying they are not seeing it...