Are there truly food shortages?

[Rubyupbeat]

Or is it media scaremongering yet again?
Where I live in the south east, there has seemed to be no shortages of anything (can't comment on meat nor fish though)
Every day in the news theres hype about shortage and people panic buying, even ready for Christmas.
So is this media hype or is it worse in certain areas?

Yabu - yes there are shortages
Yanbu - no there are not shortages

I haven’t voted because it may be different elsewhere but I’ve seen no food shortages where I am (S London). Petrol has been a bloody nightmare though.

There's lots of bare shelves across some parts of Merseyside. I'm buying Christmas treat stuff in because my favourite wine has been available at times.

There are lots of bare shelves where I am in the south of England.

Co-op where I am seems to be struggling half the shops empty, meat/fish seems to be the hardest hit the fridges have been totally empty all week.

When they do get deliveries they're still not managing to fill the shelves.

No idea if thats food shortage or delivery driver issues though.

Haven't noticed much here, wales. No subs in home deliveries from tesco

@Ponoka7

There's lots of bare shelves across some parts of Merseyside. I'm buying Christmas treat stuff in because my favourite wine has been available at times.

Yeah. Depends on shop. My local asda was visibly emptyish, nearby tesco looked much better. I am buying Christmas treats because they are now on sales before they go higher for the season 😁

One thing I realised is that it's usually the highly processe atuff which is missing. Sauce jars, satchets etc. It's spread out, some stuff has just one line so shelf looks full. However, I don't think it's anything concerning in reality atm and people really should keep calm. There is plenty of ood
Fresh is full, BUT the quality is lower than it used to be so lots goes off quicker.

I am in West Yorkshire. Notice a few processed food items haven't been available, that I would normally get for Dp.

But we haven't had empty shelves or anything like I have seen others talking about. But to be fair petrol was a problem here, for one Sunday evening and then was fine by the next night too.

Must be very different in different places

No food shortages where I am - South West London. Diesel on the other hand has been so difficult to get.

There's no shortages where I am in the North West.

While I realise everything you see online may not be true and I have no way of verifying this, someone posted on a local Facebook group last week that they now lived in Belgium and attached a picture of empty shelves in their local supermarket

I’ve noticed that some items are quite sparse on the shelves but nothing that I would personally start to worry about or cause me to buy my Christmas food early.

I split my time between Lancashire and Yorkshire equally and there's quite a few empty shelves in supermarkets in both areas. I'd say for the last 6 weeks I've not been able to get everything on my weekly shopping list. Dog food and fresh chicken in particular seem hard to get. I was looking for jam last week and Tesco didn't have a single jar and the shelves said there will be stock on 18th October which seemed quite a while away. I wouldn't say there's any need to panic as the majority of shelves are fine but there's definitely random products that you just can't get anything of.

I haven't noticed any in Greater Manchester, and after the first few days the petrol issue seems sorted near us.

I didn't think there was until I couldn't get whole milk in Aldi yesterday and had to get it from Asda. Could've just been a one off though.

I’m also in the south east

I've had no problem getting food delivered near Glasgow.
The odd thing out of stock or subbed but no more than usual.

I find this utterly bizarre, to be honest. I live in a fairly rural Northern area and there are no shortages of anything. Visited our nearest big town yesterday to do a big monthly supermarket shop in Asda. No empty shelves, no shortages of anything.

No problems with petrol here, either. I watched the news with surprise. I assume it's the media blowing everything up into a big story, but perhaps it's like the old Soviet bloc in other areas of the country? Who knows...

Regularly have difficulty in getting bread & milk, baby formula has been sparse at times, shelves only filled one deep with the same product, so not as much choice, not sure it’s actually shortages probably more a supply issue.
I’m in London, fuel last few days has been easier to get much smaller queues.

No,there is every type of food available in all supermarkets, there is however slightly less choice, so instead of 16 different brands of pasta there are 4, instead of 12 different brands of loo roll, there are 6.......

Im in midlands, the only things we have genuinely not been able to find in supermarkets recently are:

• for about a 2 week period there were no limes in any supermarket
• last week there were no pork belly slices in Asda, Morrisons or sainsburys.

but at no point has there been such shortages that we've been unable to fill a trolley with a variety of foods we like and make meals we enjoy.

Live in East of England and we're having shortages. I think it definitely depends on location. We also struggled with petrol shortages before it hit the news.

East Midlands (of England) not seen any at all.

Fuel was a bit tricky for a week or two, but that was caused by twats.
Maybe it's just stuff like organic free range Quinoa being unavailble in places where media lovies shop.

I’m in London and it’s patchy.

Fewer stock lines, choice of size (eg 50g branston beans), my local has started bunching what they have closer together or spreading out stock lines.

Never thought I’d see my large supermarket run out of milk.
No pasta either just now.

@SisterBeaverhausen

Live in East of England and we're having shortages. I think it definitely depends on location. We also struggled with petrol shortages before it hit the news.

Ive heard there were petrol shortages in the south west before it was all announced. You wouldn’t notice it until the second station you go to also doesn’t have any.

People keep denying shortages but there are definitely shortages of some products even if we do not have a full shortage of food.

@Ponoka7

There's lots of bare shelves across some parts of Merseyside. I'm buying Christmas treat stuff in because my favourite wine has been available at times.

I'm in the same area and just yesterday my daughter asked me why there were so many bags of chips in Asdas freezer section and hardly anything else. They have literally ordered extra of what they CAN get and then spread it around the make it look full. Lots of items pulled to the very front of the shelves with just one rope to give the impression of fullness.

I have really struggled to get some stuff. Coconut milk was missing for weeks. Cordial, fizzy drinks too. Really struggled to get veg for my Guinea pig herd . I also noticed that the fresh meat I could get was very short dated and I opened a chicken the day after I bought it and it was minging smelly.

I've already pre ordered my Christmas meat from m and s and my veg from the local farm shop. I am almost done for gifts and always am at this time of year. Raising 4 kids was expensive so I always had to spread it over the whole year.

There are shortages of certain products or brands, but food shortages in general no, at least not that I've seen in NW.

Nestle have said they're struggling to produce enough Quality At for Christmas, Pork and turkey suppliers are struggling because they're short of butchers and Packers I think. So shortages of these things seem likely.

Quality Street