aibu to think Xmas food shopping is panic buying?

[DragonMama3]

In Asda. people buying food like the world was ending! WHy?

Shops reopen in 12 hours?

Numbers on food waste support @MissBuffyAnneSummers@MissBuffyAnneSummers@MissBuffyAnneSummers.
Not most food, but considerably more than any other time of the year gets wasted.
Some numbers say December accounts for 30% of annual food waste

Yeah I don't get it either. Cooking for a few more people over a few days doesn't require the level of excessive crap people buy.

Yeah I don't get it either. Cooking for a few more people over a few days doesn't require the level of excessive crap people buy.

what are you deeming as excessive? Certainly it’s far more common to drink & eat more over Christmas but then generally you are housebound more.

100% this!!

@Chilicabbage

Why are you quoting me?

It's also avoiding the shops for a few days. We have people over starting from today so that's 4 days to cater for, I am not going back to the shops if I can help it so have bought appropriately

I think people want to cover eventualities so buy a wide range of things. Also everybody knows the closer you get to Christmas, the more manic the supermarkets get.

Food doesn't get wasted in this house. Gets eaten or frozen.

Exactly. A lot of this is just people wilfully misunderstanding. The "I don't get it, the shops are open again the next day" I've heard for years. This is despite dozens of people explaining how its due to being off work, hosting and not wanting to go out again for a week or even more.

It's a time of celebration for most people. A traditional time of feasting and relaxation.

Like I said before, you wouldn't find Indian people, Italians, Lebanese whinging at each other for sourcing food for a cultural feast.

Only the miserable fucking British whine on like this about each other.

In my instance it's for sauce.

So yesterday I used a litre making fish pie as well as some in the mashed potato.

For Christmas I'm making dauphinoise potatoes, broccoli cheese and will need extra for mashed potato as well as what we already get through for 4 people. I never know how much I'll need because I don't measure my ingredients, I just whack it in so I buy a bit more so I'm not running out when the shops are actually shut.

Now times that by 10 people and that's even more milk especially if some is needed for baking/desserts.

Not sure what this is in response to but whilst clearly there is too much waste, that means something very different to the 'most of it gets binned' comment early in the thread. But food waste figures are shocking anyway.

Whatever time of year, wasting food is always appalling. I dare say at least some of it is down to ignorance or just lack of common sense. The odd post on MN does make me wonder - ‘I’ve had a pack of bacon open for two days - is it still safe to eat?’

Sarcastic and not exactly true because people buy for the number of people coming + millions of nibbles + random extra meals + pure calories for the sake of it!

The puritanical ‘oh you awful gluttons with your excessive feasting’ vibe from some posters is depressing.

Enjoy feeling virtuous with your lean chicken breast with steamed veg and potatoes on the 25th. Or maybe stop sneering about people preparing for a collective feast day that is culturally significant to most people in the UK.

The puritanical ‘oh you awful gluttons with your excessive feasting’ vibe from some posters is depressing.

it’s pitiful tbh as they must have rather small lives.

I leave the house quite a lot to go other places and the shops are plentiful enough to be able to pop in on my way somewhere else.

Do you know what: I’m going to walk to Asda and pick up my bin bags and salt. Plus a festive jumper for DS2.

I’ll report back on busy-ness levels. And M&S too (I need to walk past M&S to get to Asda, so I’ll observe through the window).

My money is on busy. With car park chaos even at this time of day. Especially in M&S which has a tiny car park that fills up on a Tuesday afternoon in February.

I am coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't go grocery shopping every day and I mostly cook from scratch. I loosely meal plan for up to two weeks so I don't have to go shopping (hate it). It's not a case of "well the shops will be open anyway" for me. My cupboards are already full of staples and beyond a nice big roast and a couple of nice cheeses I don't really understand all the excess consumption. It just seems daft and wasteful to me.

I spent just under £500 in Sainsbury’s yesterday on a shop. For us it's the one time of the year, where we have whatever we like to eat.
It's just us and 4 kids also did a weekly shop on that too. And it means I haven't got to go out shopping again now till maybe after new year!

I have no idea where I'm at as had to leave DD to get the shopping. I've been at hospital most of this week as husband has major heart surgery. He is still on a ventilator.
Probably spend Christmas day here too.
Enjoy your Christmas and hug your loved ones extra hard.

I was in Morrisons at 8.45 to collect my Turkey, it wasn’t too busy and I managed to pick up a few other bits that I needed and get out pretty quickly, it was starting to get busy as I was leaving (car park filling up). I have a few more bits to buy tomorrow but got most of I what I need for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Update on my local Asda and M&S. They were moderately busy - peak normal Saturday busy rather than 23rd December craziness. Theres loads of food and everyone is being perfectly civilised about things.

well, everyone but my 3 year old who is over excited and tantrummy. Luckily he’s going to his dad’s today. So STBXH can have a long day with someone who isn’t very good at waiting!

I was walking to work yesterday, just before lunchtime. The traffic queues for getting into the Sainsbury's, Aldi and Lidl carparks were insane! My manager got stuck in Aldi when she went to pick up some milk for the staffroom in the morning. 🤦🏻‍♀️She said it was chaos in there. Evening shopping is the way to go.

we were in Tesco earlier busy but fine we got the last bits of christmas food and our normal shop people just seemed to be buying stuff and nobody was paniking

As for people asking why it doesn't all even out? And why aren't some places/people less busy as they are going away?

It sort of does. I am in SE London and it has been noticably emptier since Friday morning, as people leave the capital to visit family elsewhere. This is fairly standard at Christmas and always has been (lifelong Londoner).

I did a shop at Morrisons on Friday morning and there were more parking spaces there than a normal Friday and queues at the tills were a sensible length. I had to park in the local Sainsbury's car park at 11am this morning, which is normally a fate worse than death on a Saturday morning and it takes about 10 minutes minimum to leave again, and it was... fine. Bit busy, but nowhere near normal Saturday morning levels.

So there are some parts of the country not seeing a massive boom in shoppers.

My trolley was heaped full so I’m sure some people would assume I was panic buying or over buying but it was mostly my normal weekly shop, scaled up a bit for the extra guests and with a turkey and a couple of puddings thrown in. Other Christmas bits have been bought over the last few weeks. I cooked for 14 today, and am cooking for 10 the next three days and then 12 until 31st. That’s quite a lot of food! I’ll have to go out at some point for fresh bits but would rather avoid having to do a full shop again before new year so bought what I could for the week in my shop yesterday.