Can't get food, almost in tears

[mabelbagel]

There are two medium sized supermarkets in my town, and both are almost empty whenever I visit. No frozen stuff, no fresh, no eggs, no soya milk (I can't drink cows milk), no bread, no soup. The only thing widely available is snack /junk food and I can't live on that. I've checked the smaller shops in my town and they are also out of stuff. There are no online delivery slots either.

I am still going out to work, so all the people working at home are obviously getting there first. The shops my town are usually adequate but the next supermarket is about 15 miles away as we live in quite a rural area. I don't want to make the trip there if there's no food there either.

Just don't know what to do as it seems the panic buying won't end anytime soon and I'm fast running out of staple food

DH is in M&S and is getting bread and fruit, I thing this will be my go to shop for food at the moment as they did have a few bits in the week when Waitrose shelves were empty

sash I think you will find by early April that what you order won't be available ....

Sorry in my post I meant my areas if one those people who want a rural idyll or who are rich do NOT want to live, not that they live there. I missed a word out.
In terms have I been in them yesterday I as in Tesco express where I got my son's cucumber and spinach. My son was in the big Tesco and also Waitrose yesterday and there are some shortages but he said Tesco hd more of his vegan veg and cans than Waitrose did and the £65 I paid him back will be for food that will last him a long time (he just came home for university holidays).

The shops with good on the street I rove by them. i particularly slowed down as my son was keen to have peppers. I have quite a few but I am counting them out for myself so unusually not keen to share it all with him as it might he hard to replace. The trays in the street of the ethnic shops if I can call them that, were piled high as usual with fruit and veg. I don't know the prices as i tend to go where I can park and quickly run in somewhere just because of working full time from home without time to wander down the stalls. There were definitely peppers there. Waitrose had loads of grapefruit for some reason.

However I know lots of parts of the country have many fewer shops although a countryside client of mine yesterday offered to send me eggs (I refused) as he lives near a rural farm with loads of eggs.

I think we need to deal with the problems of no food for many people as an urgent matter as it is just a supploy chain matter eg we could hire 100 restaurant workers who may be about to be laid out per super market to be stocking up all day. We could second every school bus driver to drive more stocks to supermarkets which are having what you might call coronavirus queues round the block at 6am opening time.

I am in a London borough with a very mixed population. The local Waitrose, M&S, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s and Tesco had no eggs. The big Turkish grocers did have eggs, they also have lots of fresh veg.

However, one thing to remember about London is population density. There are a lot of people per sq km chasing the food.

And the lot of people per square km is precisely who we are supposed to be avoiding...

I am sure it is part of the reason why London is such a hot spot. I used to in LB of Westminster almost every house was split into 2 or 3 flats. So you could easily have 8-10 people per house.

used to live

I keep seeing photos of empty shelves posted on my local Facebook site but I went shopping this morning and it was fine. It was better stocked than it is at Christmas!

Driving back along my high street and it looked like business as usual. Groups of friends sat on benches with takeaway coffees and whole families out together. People are not getting the message ☹️. The Government will have no choice but to introduce more draconian measures if people carry on like this.

Grocers over the road from me have barricaded themselves in to serve customers

I was in Waitrose and then Aldi this morning, no milk bread or toilet paper at all in Waitrose plus lots of other gaps, but I did manage to get the dessert for DPs birthday that he'd asked for and some cans of tonic. The Aldi opposite did have a reasonable amount of bread and milk fortunately, and toilet paper but I didn't buy any of that because we're not desperate yet and I'm still holding out for getting some from Costco.

-I didn't go in a food shop this morning as I don't need any, just went to the post offiec with a tiny queue and I kept a 2 meter actually most of the time. I felt quite safe. I forgot in my post above that we also have an M&S too within 5 minutes'; drive - saturated by super markets, corner shops and ethnic veg stores, never mind halal and normal butchers. There were loads of veg products piled high on the displays on the street too. However some supermarkets have no eggs and we certainly have lots of empty shelves for some products.

I am outer London so not quite as crowded as inner - in fact I can see a different picture from my daughters who live right in the centre - they have fewer supermarkets as they are in the middle of a city. One daughter walked out of a corner shop in disgust without her pain killers because they were charging £8 for those and £20 for loo roll.

I hope everyone who needs food can get it and real food - proper veg (frozen or fresh) etc not just chocolate and sweets and crisps.

Same I almost cried and asked the attendant and he said come at 7.30am. There was veg! Never been so reassured by the sight of fresh bread.

Our local butcher has vegetables, milk, and eggs, but is only selling to regular customers. They are kept 'under the counter'.

Really tired of hearing 'go to more than one shop' or worse, 'go early'.

I live bang in busy London borough. Tons of shops both chains and independents. ALL of the supermarkets had massive queues before 7am. Yesterday my mum who has osteoporosis went to 7 shops and could not find eggs or flour. I eventually found some in a small co-op. There were only 5 remaining. I brought 2: 6 for my mum, 6 for me. Went further down to M&S. They had eggs there also. Quite a few. At this time it was around 10:00. I left the aisle with the eggs and went to look at cheese then tried to get bread and some other bits. Took maybe 20 mins. Went back along the aisle with the eggs in and there was an older lady looking at the egg station in despair because, unbelievably the eggs had all been now been brought. I gave her my eggs as she seemed to need them more than I did.

I'm asthmatic and have fibromyalgia. I'm in bed in agony today because I was forced to walk from shop to shop yesterday and carry more than I should. Plus force myself out the day before. I should not be out at all.

I subscribe to Amazon Fresh. This morning there is no slot available and it goes up to 17 April. Every shot is taken. I will be cancelling my subscription. What is the point?! And I know all these slots are not for those who are vulnerable.

Britain has a lot of selfish entitled people

Every slot.

If you go in first thing in the morning, right before they open their doors, the shops will have been stocked up overnight. The problem is that the shelves are bare by 10am.

If you go in first thing in the morning, right before they open their doors, the shops will have been stocked up overnight.
Tried this. Shops are not always stocked overnight. Ours was bare.

Not sure about larger supermarkets, I work in a local co op and we don't have deliveries at night.

Lidl re-stocks after close of business in the evening. I think Aldi are the same. I got an email from Tesco stating that all their stores would be closing at the earlier time of 10pm to allow staff time to re-stock shelves.

DH was shocked yesterday to see our local Waitrose bakery café still serving food & drink and several tables occupied by elderly people sitting chatting asnd reading the papers as if nothing was wrong. Why are people not getting the message yet?

I've had no issues. Been trying to get there before 10am because i don't want to have to go to more than one place due to pregnancy, and there has been more than enough. I'm only buying what I need and the shops aren't heaving.

The local newsagents and post offices also have plenty of bread and milk in.

Interestingly, the retail analyst on BBC now has backed my thought that online shopping is exacerbating the issue in the stores because of items being picked off shelves. knew I was right...

@mabelbagel hope you have got some good. Stay safe.

My friend in Spain has just told me they have police and army personnel in the bigger supermarkets now. Anyone with more than one of any item is forced to put it back! We need this here.

Allowing only 1 item of each item is ridiculous.. what about the people that have 4 kids etc. How are they meant to feed them all on 1.