Can we please stop all the bashing of “stockpilers”

[Notcontent]

Reading all the threads, it seems that anyone who has bought more than a week’s worth of food is being accused of being a selfish stockpiled responsible for all the food supply issues we have at the moment.

I think that’s slightly unfair. Yes, people who went out and bought 10 big packs of toilet paper in one go are probably responsible for the shortages. But many of us simply bought a few more things over a number of weeks.

I am one of those people. I have friends with families in Europe and I was closely following the progress of the situation since early January. Back in February, when lots of people I spoke to thought it was all an overblown drama, I started buying a few extra things every time I did a shop. Why? Because I don’t have any family nearby to help out and I usually rely on supermarket deliveries for most of my needs (no car). I would be really stuck now if I didn’t have some extra supplies as I am reliant on some small nearby shops.

@kevintheorangecarrot , it will be there. Just not conveniently so. Supermarkets started out as convenience stores - I'm old so I remember this. Their unique selling point is convenience. Nothing is convenient at the moment. So your rice will be there just not when you click your fingers.
If it is such a basic and important part of your diet - maybe you should have bought a pack of cheapo basics white rice a few months back and always had it in just in case.

There were pictures on the news yesterday of bins outside people's houses overflowing with unopened food items.
Those stockpilers need a bash TBF.

Nothing wrong with having a stockpile.
It’s panic buying that’s wrong. If you prep and have a stockpile you don’t need to anic buy.
Thank you Brexit!

I saw those pictures on Twitter (was it the one with the chicken). Then underneath someone had posted it was taken at a house where the occupant had died (not cv) and the family had been clearing out the fridge. Dont know whether that's true or not.

I prepped in advance too. I could see what was coming. I didn't join the panic buying madness as cupboards already full.

That makes it better (although that's not the word probably!) @Porcupineinwaiting. I saw one with packs of unopened bread.
I do however think that the amount of stuff people bought over the last 2 weeks or so would be very hard to get through and I do think bins will be full as a result.

"You’re the reason my elderly neighbour had to ring around the estate to ask if anyone could give her supplies because she couldn’t get them when she went to the shops.

You. Are. So. Selfish."

I dont believe she is. We were potentially all going to be locked in our houses for 12xweeks and not able to get food . So not selfish at all to prepare. In any case, shops restock their shelves most nights, so how is buying a few extra things over a number of weeks selfish,?! Just silly to call her so.

Another part of prepping is knowing to get shelf stable alternatives and knowing how to preserve fresh food.
And, if all else fails and you can't preserve fresh fruit and veg, having a compost bin set up to add that so that you can create good quality compost to grow a bit of your own food even in a tiny space.
Or you can spend the money on a manicure and having your eyebrows done.

I have always kept good reserves of food, and from early February I started to increase certain high use items. This isn't panic buying loo rolls, it's being sensible. I also try to have a minimum of a months supply of everything in the house ,

Yes the advice is conflicting - go out as little as possible and with minutes of notice you may not leave your house for 14 days (the cough can come on very quick) but do not prepare in anyway for being stuck in for 14 days and make yourself relient on non existent food delivery slots or friends, relatives and neighbours who may be shielding, isolating, not exist or be struggling to source food for themselves and closer relatives. We shop for 4 families now - we have our own food! We have to go to several supermarkets to get enough for 4 families and it doesnt last long due to restrictions on quantities. In germany you are supposed to have 10 days food but here is stock piling.

YANBU OP the supermarkets should have seen this coming.

It's not selfish.

I normally go to a supermarket almost daily but the current advice is to go as infrequently as possible so I'd try to buy 7 days in a go. I probably contributed to shortages but it's not my fault that supermarkets have JIT systems and didn't order extra.

I have loo roll and pasta bought last year because I thought there'd be Brexit chaos so I've not bought those this year.

Profiteering from the crisis is a different kettle of fish and deserves criticism.

You won't be able to 'win' on MN OP. If you buy a bit extra you're a selfish bastard killing people. If you don't and therefore have to go to the shops more frequently, you're a selfish bastard killing people.

I think preppers are the 'wise squirrels' who have put aside goods for a rainy day. Preppers will have been doing this for possibly years, so it's not new behaviour. I started prepping about 15 months ago because of the Brexit situation. As a result, it has left me well-insulated against food (and bog roll!) shortages. I have not had to 'panic buy' during the past couple of months.

There's one thing that stands out to me - as many people are now working from home or self-isolating possibly with kids at home too, they are going to be using far more food than previously, as there's no popping out in lunch breaks to buy food or school meals supplying lunches, etc. I can imagine the panic, especially when told we have to self-isolate for 14 days if a family member becomes ill. People will be thinking 'how on earth can we manage for 2 weeks without getting food in?' and because they have not been used to regularly shopping for everyone being at home, they will have no idea how much food they actually need (capacity planning, as my DP would say). Thus, the tendency to overbuy, especially if you consider the psychological impact of seeing bare shelves, or someone picking up the last packet of something. This is contributing to the basic human need to survive, and couple that with reports of deaths from the virus, it's probably asking too much to ask people to 'just shop normally'. What even is normal shopping in these times? So I get what people are doing.

Plus people had no idea (and to some extent we still don't know) how long all this will go on for, nor how bad it will get. It feeds into this mass anxiety.

There's always be people looking to make a fast buck buying up and reselling items. They are the lowest of the low imo. But many are simply trying to look after themselves and their (extended) families out of fear. I can't really condemn them for that.

There will be a lot of lessons to be learned after this epidemic passes, and I hope one will be that everyone needs to be better prepared for serious events like this, and for those who cannot due to financial difficulties or otherwise, the govt needs to be able to step up far more quickly than it has been able to do this time. The 'wise squirrels' should not be condemned, perhaps it's because those who have not been wise, or could not be, are lashing out through fear and anger. We are not the ones you should be angry with.

OP I did the same as you and I won't be made to feel guilty. I read the prepper boards in early Feb and thought hmmm yes lets do this. Not everything they do, I ONLY bought extra of what we eat anyway (no tinned mac and cheese, curry, hotdogs etc)! This is because I don't want to have to dispose of anything that doesn't get used.

So I put a few essentials in a box under a sofa. I also bought extra of the ingredients I usually use the most when cooking, such as spices etc (just one extra of each). I also bought a large tray of chicken breasts to freeze which I commonly do anyway. This was bought over a month so I didn't notice the extra cost and it meant when the panic buying started, we could take a step back from shopping as we had some supplies in already. I have used a fair bit of the stash now as we are trying to shop less and were unable to get some items for a bit but are hoping to be able to replace some here and there as we go along.

I am a HCP in the community and used to pop in to tesco regularly to use the loo and would grab the odd bit of shopping whilst there, I cannot do that now as I obviously won't pop in anywhere in my uniform now (no loo for me now ). Keeping a few extra supplies simply means we can shop less which is completely in the spirit of the government guidance. I don't have time to sit refreshing the tesco website to try and get a delivery slot so have to rely on a weekly shop, so yes we probably will buy more than usual. All three kids used to have school dinners and we all had takeaway once a week and sometimes lunch out on a Saturday so we do need a lot more food now.

People need to take account of others' situations before throwing insults - claiming it is our fault an elderly lady apparently couldn't buy any food.

Sorry, but the advice to stay as much as possible and also the advice at the beginning to self quarantine for 14 days is NOT compatible with not doing at least a small amount of stockpiling or prep. It's down to shops and the govt to manage this so everyone has enough, but expecting families or people living alone not to buy extra stuff is delusional and neglectful.

The food limits are making me stressed. I always buy a lot of food as I have a hungry husband who works in a very manual job and 3 dc including 2 huge growing teenage boys! They can eat a tin of beans each or a whole bag of pasta for just one meal and now I can only buy a limited amount a week or none at all. Their lunches at ‘home school’ are huge and although I’m a bit of a prepper and always over buy, I’m really worried that in a couple of weeks I won’t be able to get enough to feed them and will have to go out to shop regularly which isn’t ideal.

The 80 item Tesco limit is a nightmare! I’ve never ordered under 80 items in my life!!! It feels like my boys eat 80 items a day sometimes

I've just read an article about an elderly man who died from Corona virus, after having not eaten in over a week due to self isolating. Considering this it isn't unreasonable to have stocked up or to stock up now where possible. So long as you don't got mad (buying restrictions help this) then it prevents people either breaking their self isolation to get food or ending up without.

If you advance search the posters on this board who are raging at 'stockpilers' and raging at their neighbours family going out for a walk together, and stating again and again that if you go outside you will KILL 2.3 people - if you Advance Search them, you will find that they were the ones who a week or two ago were complaining and policing about all the posts about Coronavirus and telling everyone that they were scaremongering and causing anxiety.

Oh yes, and also stating that Italians were completely different to British because Italians hug each other and live in flats. So we Brits could never have an epidemic like Johnny Foreigner because we are Different and Special.

It is the same posters. You can see it now, because they haven't name-changed yet.

We have always had a reasonable stock of things. For example , if I start a new deodarant, I buy a new one. If washing powder is on a good offer , buy 3 , likewise most things . I have a pasta/ rice cupboard, it's just something we have always done.
I have 2 freezers and often batch cook. I haven't had to panic buy. I don't class myself as a prepper either.

I have a small stockpile of food. I didn't buy from the supermarket (except adding in a tin or something or other since the beginning of Feb) but ordered online from a shop that's mainly wood and garden and whatnot supplies but for some reason also sells dry foods so I got a basic stockpile of dry foods (also it sells my favourite shower gel which my local shops don't sell any more so bought some of that! And the only wipes that don't give my toddler a rash which also local shops stopped selling two months ago so I admit I bought a pile of them). At the slightest hint of illness in any of us we're all staying home (at the moment OH goes out occasionally to work, thankfully not often, and buy food) so I'm glad we have the supplies for that.

There's no shortage of foods in the shops where I live though, there isn't even a shortage of toilet paper. People aren't panic buying here.

It almost feels like we need a rationing system that actually accounts for the size of your family. I read some bollocks on FB about not needing to stock up because 'a pack of pasta will last a week'. A pack of pasta lasts us one meal!!! 80 items in Tesco would be considerably less than my normal weekly shop, even though we are needing 25 extra lunches and 10 extra breakfasts with us all in the house all the time. Luckily we are as near to Sainsbury's as to Tesco's, and they have much more sensible limits. Of course I bought more food than usual - we bloody need it, even without wanting to limit supermarket visits. Unless you think (like some bonkers posters on a previous thread) that we should actually be eating less per person than a smaller family because of our decision 8 years ago to have an extra child

A lot of the rage about 'stockpilers' seems to be jealousy/regret about not being prepared etc. I'm a bit of a prepper, and more so since the Brexit stuff, so was pretty well prepared. I also booked grocery deliveries well in advance. It seems to me that if anyone should have anger directed to them, firstly it should be the utter twats profiteering on ebay etc, then the idiots who, for weeks, scoffed and said 'it's nonsense, it's only a cold' etc etc, then rushed out to clear the shelves when it finally dawned on them that it wasn't. Those are the things that have affected the stock levels.

Preppers and stock Pilers are one and the same thing, what they are not is panic buyers, so they consistently and periodically stock pile goods in their own home, but don’t rush out and do it all at once, and they do it for many reasons, brexit, Covid, general conspiracy theories, mental health issues, whatever.

I personally don’t think there is an issue having two weeks of stock in, it reduces the need to go out, so I’d say advisable, but some people have months of food, toilet roll and hand soap in, squirrelling it under their beds and in their wardrobes, buying a second freezer, when it’s really not necessary in reality.

But trying to soften it by calling stock piling prepping is silly. Because what you’re preparing for isn’t real. It’s stock piling pure and simple. May as well call it what it is.