It was the “few extra bits” people who emptied the shelves, not “selfish stockpiles”

[GravityFalls]

Research from Kantar, analysing 100,000 UK shoppers.

Link to the report: www.kantar.com/Inspiration/FMCG/Accidental-stockpilers-driving-shelf-shortages-in-the-UK

Only 3% of regular pasta buyers were buying “extraordinary amounts” - in other words it was those people buying two bags instead of one that left gaps on shelves.

Just goes to show how delicate the balance of the just-in-time model is.

Will be interesting to see what happens with B*** at the end of the year.

Interesting. And some of those buying "just a little exta," will be doing so because suddenly the whole family is at home all day and not eating out/having school dinners etc. It clearly doesn't take much to top things over.

Interesting. I've heard half the food eaten in the UK is 'catered' - school meals, canteens, breakfast and lunch on the go, eating out etc.

So buying two bags of pasta a week when you usually buy one is hardly selfish behaviour, it's buying the food you need that week.

If that’s true and I of interest doubt it is then the reality is that many of those “few extra bits” buyers were buying a “few extra bits” because they suddenly found themselves having to make many many more meals at home

I didn’t see any stockpile shoppers but I’m sure that most of us bought a little extra because of the uncertainty

What's amazed me is how quickly we've run out of teabags, milk and sugar being at home. Normally we'd buy a box of teabags a month, we're getting through that many a week now. So we're probably contributing to the issues because we're not drinking tea at work at the moment.

I've noticed how much quicker the food goes now DD and OH are home all day. Especially tea bags! My OH guzzles tea so whenever he makes a brew, I end up having one.

I've had to buy just a bit more as my dd is now eating at home instead of at school and dd1 is back from uni so we have an extra adult in the house.

I wonder how demand for supermarket goods in March 2020 compared to Xmas 2019? While I'm not buying party food and alcohol this month , my shopping habits are similar- I'll have extra loo rolls and snacks because we're at home more (ds1 is normally away at uni)

We have had to buy a lot more than usual, no work canteen lunches, no school dinners, no eating out and we usually eat with family at weekends so have almost doubled the amount of meals we eat at home.

I bloody knew it!!

We’re not eating more food (at least I’m trying not to) but we’re eating in different places.
So rather than kids getting lunch at schools, people eating out in restaurants, getting takeaways etc where the food would come from wholesalers, we’re now all buying more directly from supermarkets.
That’s not panic buying but will definitely put more pressure in the supermarket delivery chains.

Well having 3 extra mouths at home during the day means I have to feed them which in turns means I have to buy more from the shops.

The question is what’s happened to all the catering supply food.

Appreciate a lot of it will be hard to divert to retail as it’s massive boxes etc but the fresh stuff should be fairly interchangeable ?

When the government announced there was £1Bn extra groceries in British homes, and castigated people for 'selfish stockpiling' I did the maths. 66M people. Equates to £15 extra per person.
For a nation who at the time were dealing with instructions to isolate for 2 weeks if symptomatic, and with children home from school eating meals there, and also being told to reduce unnecessary exposure by going out to shop less frequently, and the imminent prospect of lockdown looming.

That £15 pp hardly seemed excessive.
The intense focus and condemnation of 'stockpilers' has encouraged us all to be angry, resentful and suspicious of each other when in reality most people are behaving completely responsibly and proportionately.

It's also kept the focus away from the real issue - inadequate resource planning for a pandemic which countries have had several weeks to prepare for, and mixed messages from a government causing uncertainty in the population.

It has felt like we've been pitched against each other as a distraction, rather than us holding those in power and authority who could actually make a real difference to account.

Good point Barracker, probably less than 5 meals per person but it's a lot easier to point the finger at the public than question the frailty of our supply chains.

Most families/people know what they consume in a week. So, why the sudden run on pasta etc ?

It seems people drastically changed their food intake for no apparent reason.

In a lockdown eat nothing but baked beans and soup for a week. Right oh.

Water - you haven't read the links very well then. There's no indication that anyone "drastically changed" their food intake. More that they wanted a little bit more food that kept well (tinned goods and dried food) and also that they were having to make more meals at home. No sudden run on pasta. Just lots of people buying a small amount more adding up to sudden shortages.

DP has been working from home since the end of Feb and I've notice I'm running out of milk, coffee and teabags much sooner than I would be.

I've definitely had to buy lots more food this week to feed 4 of us stuck at home eating only food at home when normally the 4 of us would be out of the house - usually only dh and I ever pack lunches and snacks and even then it's not every day. I've gone through so much more bread and deli meat and cheese and cereal than I would in probably 2 weeks.

I do have food 'stockpiled' (as in about 2 weeks of store cupboard food and freezer meats that I bought probably 6 weeks ago in preparation for exactly this). That's because I have an underlying health condition and we have no one to help us with shopping or anything, so trying to limit us having to go out for a shop only once every 2 weeks for the next 12 weeks. I think this is surely what every sensible person would do who is facing 3 months at home though.

After this week though, I'd like to think that a lot of wholesale food will be re-directed to the retail market. We've already started to buy fruit and veg from a local wholesaler.

DD2 normally has a pasta salad in the school canteen. Now she is wanting instant noodles. Not ideal but it's one minor thing that she's enjoying during this weird and unsettling time. So I plead guilty to buying more "pasta" than normal but there is no "stockpile"

The £15 a head figure is very interesting, because we normally spend significantly more than that per week on two sets of school dinners and two sets of deli/restaurant sandwiches.

Oh bore off