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 ❄️

Also milk and bread doesn’t go off quickly. 🤷🏻‍♀️ The milk I got in my shop end of last week doesn’t go out of date til the 15th - that’s 2 weeks from when I bought it. We easily get about 7-9 days from a standard loaf of Tesco bread. If I’m stuck at home for 10 days because we’re snowed in, I’ll probably be grateful for bread and milk even though I don’t usually consume much of either in my normal life.

@mindutopia maybe it's the 50/50 stuff that doesn't hold up well 🤔
Once milk is open though it wouldn't last 2 weeks.
I just think if I was having to venture out in bad weather to stock up on supplies because I am going to be potentially stuck inside for several days bread and milk wouldn't be my priority. Other foods would be.
That's all. It's no big issue.

I think the OPs question was about things like this meme.
My point was if I was panic buying in the supermarket this wouldn't be what I would be buying 😂😂
(picture incoming)

OH says he’s off out to panic buy yeast.

For homemade bread or beer 😂

I’ve never done it, but it doesn’t take a highly intelligent person to realise that some people might be worried that they might not be able to get out and buy some? 🤔🤔🤔

But if you can't get to the shop down the road it's not really a priority is it?

But this is presumably about people who can get to a shop as they are the ones who are buying stuff?

If they are buying bread and milk, it's because that's what they want!

Bread rolls apparently. We’ve got ‘too much flour’.

Oh I give up...
The OP said "why do people panic buy bread?".
I answered (words to the effect of) "yes I wonder that too because it's a perishable product wouldn't it make sense to stock up on more long life foods".
But everyone seems to think I am some kind of anti-bread warrior.
If you want bread buy bread.
🥪🍞🥖

Vunerable people especially, who maybe don't have huge amounts of money to be stockpiling food or indeed the space/ tech required to store and keep it fresh, let alone the time and ability to fuck around actually making bread as has been suggested.

No… lots of people don’t have store cupboards. Many live in flats with insufficient storage and little expendable income. Bread can be eaten cold and soup can be heated via electrics or gas without adding water if the pipes free.

Schools shut down when there’s snow to protect students from taking dangerous roads to get there. In the 60s people lived closer to their schools and often walked or took a short bus. Now many are driven or take long journeys (mine was 40-90mins away in the 2010s.

Where do you live? That definitely doesn’t happen in the SE. I’ve been a teacher for 15yrs & never heard that mentioned once as something that occurs.

A warm meal is all well and good if you have power, if not it's sandwiches for every meal. We have enough provisions and fuel for the whole winter but many don't have the space, money or ability to do that.

Where do you live? That definitely doesn’t happen in the SE. I’ve been a teacher for 15yrs & never heard that mentioned once as something that occurs.

I've taught for 25+ years and this has never happened! I can't see how it could either with requirements for DBS MATs!

No teacher is going to just ring in their usual workplace and say they aren't coming in and are going to the local school instead. You'd need to wait for your head to tell you your school was closed a first and by that point, the head of your local school has already had to make a decision on ether to open or not, based on the staffing info that already had.

No head is going to just welcome in a teacher swinging by at that point-they could be anyone.

It's more to do with getting the staff there and home again safely.

It's different from the old days when the teachers all tended to live locally. More and more these days, teachers have commutes of 45 minutes plus.

This thread reminds me of a really bad winter in the 70s where it was a '1 loaf of bread per family' policy in the local shop due to a shortage when the snow was so high.
I went in, as a child, and the shopkeeper wouldn't sell bread to me because he said if he did that people could send their kids in 1 by 1 and have more bread than fair.
My mom was fuming, she stormed in and reminded him that they were neighbours and he knew all of her kids by name, but he wouldn't budge .😂 Happy days.

Do you dip a cold crumpet in your soup when the power goes off?

The issue is surely more than a large number of people don't weekly shop anymore and are heavily reliant on within week deliveries or takeaways? I am surprised by my colleagues who no longer weekly shop. I shop once a week and have a pantry full of stuff, in fact I live in the dark ages. I lived 18mths without a cooker when renovating so would happily survive again with my open fire, camping stove and BBQ. As it happens, I live in South Wales and will likely never see snow in my lifetime 😂 at a push though I could survive a month without leaving the house (mainly on Christmas leftovers!).

What i dont understand is how people will go out on the worst day to panic buy when the snow will have fully cleared by the next day. Also I'm pretty sure we could survive for a month without needing a shop the food might be a bit random but we wouldn't starve

It's like with covid, ppl stockpiled stuff that wouldn't keep and more bleach than they'd use in a lifetime, I always keep cupboard full of soups, beans etc, just bought 4 tins of really cheap spaghetti as fancied it and can have that as a treat and always keep freezer full of veg and try to keep in frozen chicken and fish, it's good to stockpile long lasting food in case anything happens like a big bill and you can't afford much food or in case you get ill and can't go out or something

Always got 4pints 1 loaf in freezer

Its also because state schools are poorly maintained and simply dont have the ability to heat the buildings in freezing weather. Modern and well built facilities have heated systems on the outside to prevent frozen pipes but schools for some reason are especially flimsy. Ditto fire safety features. I dont think teachers relish the time off because it still has to be taught but I also dont think they have the terrible life some say. I know lots of people who work in life and death situations who dont need a week off out of 7 to decompress. Teachers are great and its worthy and noble and hard work but let's call a teacher a teacher. The holidays are a nice bonus and a factor in people doing the job.

Also you don’t eat all the time when you are at home!

My cousin works at a supermarket. They have been told in bad weather go and work at your nearest store. Almost everyone in the store’s nearest store is the one that they work in. Plus if you did work at another store, as he helped out working at one when the store flooded a couple of years ago, things like codes for secure areas, product locations etc

Is that New South Wales because we've had some snow in Swansea the last few days? Not 1982 levels though but enough to make it white.

If you've got gas no problem.