To think there will be food shortages?

[Hornetfarmer]

Couldn't see a recent thread.
For the first time I have recently noticed that my local Lidl has lots of empty spaces. It wasn't just "exotic" items but basics. For instance there was:
Barely any fresh fruit
Limited salad
No salted butter
No Greek yoghurt
Very little whole milk
Very limited tinned tomatoes.
I've noticed this a lot more recently but often shop late at night so thought it was related to the time I was going in but yesterday I went in the afternoon and it was the same.

Talking to a friend who is a dairy farmer, he thinks there is a perfect storm for a real food crisis.
Apparently the cost of fertilizer has gone up so much that farmers aren't using as much which is causing a reduced yield of both crops and milk. The situation in Ukraine is only going to make this worse.
This will also have a huge impact on the cost and availability of grain so there will be shortages of wheat based items.
Due to Brexit there are no fruit pickers available so we won't have nearly as much available.
Farmers will not sew as much this year due to the wastage and cost of fertilizer so this will have a knock on effect for next year.

I am not one for worrying generally but have to admit that I'm a little spooked by this.

Anyone else got any insight?

Plenty of everything in Aldi where we are! I know it’s a worry - I think I’m mostly worried that food prices will increase a lot in the coming months

I think the supply chains are struggling a bit. I’ve had trouble getting different things in different supermarkets at different times. At one point, you couldn’t get cornflakes for love nor money round here. There were no tinned tomatoes in Lidl the other day. Sainsburys had a very limited selection of pasta last week.

I don't think there will be no food available at all. But I do think there will be shortages of particular items.

I have only noticed this in lidl to be far huge shelving racks empty. Perhaps it's their specific supply issue?

Although I have noticed supermarkets have scaled down their offerings

Oh great just what we need, a thread to spark panic buying.

Global famine coming, from an article I read this morning. I will try and find it.

You are correct about lack of pickers for fields. I went to a farm last year, and half the crop of cauliflowers or whatever it was[calibrese?] was left in the fields. Awful to see.

Local Tesco has random outages, usually meat and paper products, bizarrely. They also generally have a smaller range than a few years ago, which I quite like. I don’t think we actually need a choice of thirty different shapes of pasta or a dozen types of sandwich bags.

I don’t think there will be widespread food shortages in the U.K., but prices will rise significantly and there'll be shortages of particular items.

I’d be a lot more worried if I lived in the Middle East or parts of Africa though.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10649439/Biden-warns-food-shortages-going-real-Ukraine-invasion.html

But if the war finishes..?

But as I understand it, planting isnt happening right now, on the same scale as before.

@Theyellowflamingo

Local Tesco has random outages, usually meat and paper products, bizarrely. They also generally have a smaller range than a few years ago, which I quite like. I don’t think we actually need a choice of thirty different shapes of pasta or a dozen types of sandwich bags.

I don’t think there will be widespread food shortages in the U.K., but prices will rise significantly and there'll be shortages of particular items.

I’d be a lot more worried if I lived in the Middle East or parts of Africa though.

Meat products may have been due in part to butchering issues. [lack of gas or something, I forget now]. Paper - timber shortages. Plus I assumed that beacuse people were working from home, they were using local supplies rather than office supplies?

I was in a certain Supermarket the other day and in the frozen isle it looked like they were playing shop. There were literally about 4 items.

So you've decided to start a threat to send people off panic buying? I don't think you've thought this through op.

Sorry, I meant paper products as in tissues, toilet paper etc. What was once an aisle absolutely filled with dozens of varieties is now a half an aisle with about 3 varieties, carefully arranged along the front so the empty shelves look full. Has been happening on and off since covid - I assume because of issues with wood supply.

There have been shortages of random items for about 2 years now. As long as we don't get a shortage of everything at once it shouldnt be a problem, just buy something different.

Incidentally when I worked in a shop 15 years ago there would be days when we inexplicably had no milk, or sold out of all the tinned tomatoes but a few days later they would be replenished, its not a new thing.

Terrible idea to start a thread like this. Don’t you remember toilet paper gate?

We need to rethink how we treat farm workers. When I was a teen the fields were full of students including senior school children especially in the long holidays (summer holidays are long traditionally so children could still help in the farms)
Now people are expected to live on site in chappy portacabins and be over 21

Shortages? There will be if we keep sensationalising everything.

I think it's supply chain issues relating to each supermarket rather than a general shortage.

They can be empty shelves in one and in the next they are full, but empty for different items.

I've not noticed all the supermarkets lacking the same item.

I think the supply problems we have seen over the past two years will continue, where you can't necessarily get a particular item in a given week. But I don't think there will be shortages in the sense that shops can't supply enough for us to eat a balanced diet. That didn't happen 2 years ago and it won't happen now. People will need to switch to rice and rapeseed oil instead of pasta and sunflower oil but we'll be fine.

I find it annoying that we can't mention this without bit being called sensationalist. I am not at all suggesting people go out and panic buy. This isn't the current situation but has potential to develop. Surely to mitigate against this we put things in place now - pay milk producers properly so they can actually afford to buy fertilizer for instance.

Local farmer this morning who currently sowing field told me the hopper at front of tractor with some kind of fertilisers was £300 to fill and now it's £1000 per hopper. If things don't improve we are in big trouble.

Current shortages could be due to high cases of covid, so people not available to pick/produce products, deliver, put on shelves and serve. I went to Lidls a couple of weeks ago, a lot of essential items were missing. Went back a couple of days later, the same thing. I then heard a customer talking to assistant at the tills and it was due to the fact most of the staff had covid and there there wasn't anyone to stock shelves.

Let’s all rush out and panic buy!!!

Thanks for letting me know OP, I’m shitting myself now and plan to stock up with a least a years supply

@lightand the daily mail isn't even allowed to be used as a reference for Wikipedia because it's so unreliable. Any story they run should be considered about as fictional as Harry Potter.

@lightand 'global famine' 😂😂😂

@lightand

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10649439/Biden-warns-food-shortages-going-real-Ukraine-invasion.html

But if the war finishes..?

But as I understand it, planting isnt happening right now, on the same scale as before.

Well to make fertiliser massive energy input is needed, therefore it is made in Russia because they have an abundance of cheap energy.

I guess we no longer important fertilizer from Russia due to sanctions, so prices of fertiliser and therefore food will go up.

I think if the war just ends, sanctions will still be on.