To be fed up of supermarket low stock

[BradfordGirl]

Since Christmas stock is so low in the supermarkets. I have tried different supermarkets and going at different times, it makes no difference. Today I had to go two supermarkets so I could buy bread, milk and ham - so hardly an exotic shopping list. The supermarkets all have some large empty spaces in their fruit and veg section and lots of other things missing. And trying to get eggs is not easy.
The only supermarket with good stock is the co-op. I went in as I had been a few places trying to get eggs and was a bit taken aback to see shelves fully stocked. Unfortunately it is quite expensive.
But I am getting fed up of all the other supermarkets having permanently low stock.

It drives me to distraction when I can't get half my list and have to try another three places to get everything.

There's no denying that Brexit and the state of our economy are factors.

We've only got a few more months before we start losing well established High Street shops again.

Brexit permanently screws up our supply chains and has created staffing shortages across warehousing and transportation.

Inflation means we're buying less so supermarkets are reducing their orders.

With so many of us having to change how we shop to find £400 extra a month for our mortgages and £200 extra a month for our energy bills the supermarkets algorithms are useless.

We wouldn't be so vulnerable to other causes of shortages if we still had agile supply chains able to fill the gaps.

But we don't. Thanks to Brexit.

Oh and online shopping is less affected. If you’re doing an online shop, it’s likely from a bigger store. Most bigger stores have a good proportion of the shelf stacking done overnight. And the pickers for online/collection start early. So they get a fairly good selection and then the shop looks like it’s been ransacked by 11am and v few staff stacking shelves until later that night (fresh is possibly the exception).

Electricity costs (heating laying barns) and grain (feed) cost rises without related rises in egg sale prices have also forced some poultry farmers to scale back production by reducing the number of barns/sheds they run, or give up. There was a feature on R4 news before Christmas.

@OhIdoLike2bBesideTheSeaside It is so annoying when you have to go to multiple supermarkets to get basic foodstuffs. Fruit and veg seems the worst. And what surprised me is it is all the supermarkets except the Co-op.
I am getting fed up of it.

DH got 12 eggs in a Leeds Asda on Friday. It depends if you drop in when they’ve had a delivery. They don’t last long on the shelves though.

The egg issue is because the supermarkets are refusing to pay farmers a fair price for their eggs.

most egg units I know of have mothballed themselves (just haven't bought in any more replacement chickens) until things improve, one organic free range egg producer I know realised he was better off working as a delivery driver for one of the supermarkets than he was supplying eggs to them.

of course they won't admit the egg shortage is because they are too greedy to pay properly so they have conveniently blamed avian flu.

lots of us warned before the referendum that people were going to get a shock re food prices and availability.

Our government is now trying to put small family farms out of business as well by the way, in favour of importing everything 'cheaply' (i.e fewer regulations and lower welfare standards) from overseas because we have reached a point where the welfare standards and regulations British farmers have to abide by have made food too expensive for the population to afford.

This was got round for many years by farmers being paid farming subsidies to make up the difference between the cost of production and what they could actually sell the product for. They are going now, by almost half this year down to nothing over the next few years.

things aren't going to get better any time soon!

I’m finding tinned cat food hard to find in my local Sainsbury. It seems like an odd shortage.

Agreed. I get my shopping delivered online (on mat leave and sharing a car Currently and DH at work most days so it's just easier to do online).

Asda only had cravendale milk available when I placed the order. Delivery this morning. No cravendale. No substitute.

Just a pain in the ass then having to get the car out to traipse about for something so basic. Eggs have been permanently out of stock since mid November also. Luckily we have a farm up the road who sells the best eggs ever.

Oh and I've taken to making my own bread, slicing and freezing because its either out of date or has been sat by an elephant on when you can get it🤣

It's a staffing issue. Same thing happens every year, January comes and we get all our payroll budgets slashed so can't cover sickness or holidays. It lasts until the new tax year starts in April then things get a bit better. We've got pallets in the warehouse we can't work because we don't have the bodies on the shop floor filling, it's frustrating for staff and customers alike.

Remember that really annoying, but ear-wormy Marc Jacobsen advert?

Instead of Daisy Daisy Daisy... think Brexit Brexit Brexit.

Hope that helps.

It does not happen every year. I have never seen this before.

Lidl had no chicken last week, nothing. Staff told me it was staff absence in logistics causing the situation

Oil is sometimes difficult that's down to the war. Eggs are very low stock due to bird flu. Not everything is down to Brexit.

I did once struggle to get hold of cheese strings for 6 weeks though that made me quite cross so I sympathise.

We should not have to be hanging around supermarkets waiting for a delivery.

I didn’t say you should.

It's a case of not shopping at exactly the same time.

Easier for someone like me who WFH and has plenty of supermarkets she can travel to.

For example there were no eggs in my nearest Asda, which is 6 minutes walk away, on Tuesday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon I drove to a Sainsbury's 12 miles away and got eggs.

That made me giggle in a "You have to laugh or else you'd flipping weep" kind of way.

How do you not realise that just because supplies are ok for you, that it might be different elsewhere?!?! Come on, it's critical thinking

The great 'cream cracker shortage' was noticeable before Christmas but I have managed to get some since.

Eggs - our Asda only had boxes of 12 or 15 this weekend, no boxes of 6 (we don't eat enough eggs to buy more). I went to Iceland and bought a box of 10 for the price that I normally pay in Asda for 6 - I don't mind throwing 4 unused eggs away if I don't feel as though I have paid for them!

Fresh, full-fat lacto-milk has been out of stock in all our local supermarkets for three weeks niow.

It's tomatoes for me. 🍅 My husband only got some this week in the second shop he tried because someone had dumped a pack in the wrong place. All the tomato places were empty. Again.

@Reugny I have said that I have tried different times. It makes no difference. I mean maybe at 11.05 am on a Wednesday morning all the shelves are full for an hour and I miss it. But otherwise timing makes no difference.

It's not because of Bird Flu!

Went to 3 shops (Tesco/Waitrose/Aldi) and didn’t manage to get a full shop plus spent more than I should have done

Very frustrating

Waitrose had a good stock of eggs, aldi had no bread and only 2/4 pints of milk no 6, also quite a few gaps very little cheese and ham I noticed and the freezer section was bare apart from vegan shit

Its been steadily getting worse for a while now and the cost is crazy!

Where abouts are you (roughly!) - we've had no problems here at all, even with things the Daily Fail was harping on about, like eggs!
I don't think it's a Brexit problem though as when I was in Spain recently they were really struggling for stock, and my friends who live abroad in Europe are finding certain things very tricky to get hold of, like flour for example

For me it's a mix, the local ones are good for stock just a bit pricy at full price, the main supermarkets are ok, but low eggs, it's a mix and match really.