Why do people panic buy bread when it snows

[Plun]

There is more food than bread. Yet bready things like English muffins and crumpets don’t get a look in.

Plus tins of soup. Don’t people have store cupboards anymore? I have enough food in for about a month. Though run out of FnV but at the end of the period, it will be any food for any meal

Last night I watched a tv documentary on BBC4 from the 1960s about the Big Freeze of 62/63. Anyone who is mid 60s or older will remember this. Devon, Dorset and Cornwall were the worst affected. 14ft snow drifts, villages completely cut off.

People now can’t cope with a single snowflake ❄️

Op is there a bread&,soup shortage i mean you have to go out at some point to actually stock up your plentiful store cupboard,or does the shopping faries bring it ? I went out to do my monthly shop yesterday it might have looked like i was stock piling bread.

That sounds bloody miserable, i remember going to school in deep snow in the 70s, it didnt make me any hardier i just remember being cold and wet.

I was 12 in the 62/63 winter, snow was as high as me,we went to school.. I've seen periods of heavy snow since. In 1986, I drove across country with drifts of over 2 MTS I was nursing, I knew they would be shorted staffed. It took me a couple of hours to drive 12 miles. People who lived 2 miles away, didn't attempt to walk in. I think it was 2012, it snowed, I had a 50 mile drive to the hospital, I used major roads, motorways. Used to have to dig the car out after a shift. I do have a larder, plenty of provisions. Perhaps it's like COVID,bread, then toilet rolls!

There are 4ft snow drifts here and roads totally blocked that not even the farmers are able to clear, people stuck having to be towed out or abandon their cars. Schools have rightly closed. They don’t close here often and definitely not at a light dusting of snow!

Back then girls were not allowed to wear trousers so if you had tights on you just had wet legs all morning till they dried..

I think it’s fear of no deliveries making it to the shop if the snow gets worse so they buy extra ‘just incase’ also if the electricity goes off then bread is an easy meal as you can make sandwiches.
During the beast from the east I had to trek all over to find milk as we ran out. The big Tesco across the road was fully stocked but closed due to snow falling off the roof near the entrance.
I’m in central Scotland and we haven’t had any snow yet this winter. I tend to have a decent stock of tins in so we wouldn’t starve if we had a big snow. So long as we have one loaf of bread in I wouldn’t buy another as we don’t usually get through that much anyway and it would be a waste to get an extra loaf.

Depends on how much of a backbone the organisation has.

Are people panic buying bread or are the deliveries just not getting in/ delayed?

I am in central Scotland we had snow yesterday.

I’m in my fifties now and when we were at primary and secondary school the only reason the schools closed was if the heating wasn’t working!
If a teacher couldn’t get in it was a bonus as we got to do crafty stuff, library, joined classes etc etc.
I remember walking to school (about half a mile) in my wellies and the snow deep enough it was over the top of my boots!
And at break times we still went outside and played 🤣 It was brilliant!!!!!!!

I remember it as well - we all went to school, despite outside frozen loos, and adults went to work. Mainly on public transport, which also ran pretty well. The councils cleared main roads pretty quickly.

Now, an inch of snow seems to create chaos. 🙄

Where are you @Clefable ?

It's because lorries stop delivering. And if you have bread you can freeze it. And eat it with the canned soup.

I good feed us for a month. Meals would be a bit weird but this is a luxury many people don’t have. Storage, money to buy more than you need…

I don’t currently have any bread in but my tween will run up to the local shop for me when he rises from his pit!

Only once our school was closed because of snow which was 1982. It was a lot of snow and the village was inaccessible, so was everywhere else.

I remember going in to school other times when the heating had packed in, sitting in class wearing coats, gloves and scarves. There was no social media in those days and once everyone from outlying villages were bussed in that was it, pupils had to stay.

I don't understand the bread and milk panic though. A warm meal instead of sandwiches or toast would be better and milk for tea and coffee.

You are clearly not where I am, north east of Scotland, haven’t been out since last Wednesday so starting to run out of fresh food. Deliveries can’t get through either due to the amount of snow we’ve had

People should just learn how to make their own bread. Its much easier than many think, way tastier and cheaper as well. If you have bags of flour in the pantry then you'll never run out of bread.

I think some people on here are making vast assumptions about what and how people can cope. It’s a massive overreaction to claim people can’t cope with a snowflake. Then again, I also don’t see bread being panic bought.

It’s a bit of snow. We had plenty of warning and it will melt before long. The bigger concern should be for those who don’t have the mobility to go out and those who can’t afford to heat themselves up.

Lots of snow and ice where I am and all schools are open as normal even though the roads have not been gritted.

Years ago it was more normal to bake your own bread so a bread shortage in the local shop if the delivery couldn’t get through was less of an impact.

Store bought bread was a convenience back then, not a necessity.

I do find myself pondering how the decisions to shut schools are made in my part of the UK. We don't have snow. A tiny smattering. Not even enough to measure, just a few flakes on the ground. My kids comprehensive school is shut though. Now it doesn't bother me, I'm quite happy to see her get a bonus day off but I do wonder why. The roads are gritted and I can hear there are plenty of cars on the road. Maybe some teachers who are further away have had more snow and can't get in but I'd be surprised if that's more than a minority.

Is it that they're more risk averse these days? Before I get attacked, I want to reiterate, I'm not bothered, I certainly don't blame the teachers who won't have even made the decisions, I just wonder why.

True, but by the early 1970’s, during a bread shortage, people were physically fighting over grabbing loaves of shop bought bread.

I assume it must be done differently in different areas but here, if the weather is bad enough, the teachers go to their local school rather than the school where they normally teach.

Where do you live?

This was talked about as a solution when I started teaching in the 90s, but never actually happened-when it snowed, the local schools all stayed open or all shut anyway.

Now, with DBS checks and schools belonging to different MATs, it would be a safeguarding nightmare just allowing random teachers to pitch up. Head teachers have to make a decision at 6/7am as to whether they are going to close or not, and would base that on safety and staff numbers, not an estimate of what local teachers might decide to swing by.

Aberdeenshire!