Panic buying: what are we light-hearedly learning about our hosts?!

[lekkerkroketje]

I'm in Paris and have just gone back from the shop. It's been quite the culinary-anthropological field trip. For a land supposedly so keen on good food, instant noodles seem to be a necessity. Even the corona virus can't persuade people to buy lentil, wholegrain or Alsation pasta. To put on your (white) pasta, only reblouchon and comte are permissable. Mozzarella and parmesan are untouched! Nice French couscous and rice are great, but the ones with Arabic on are weird and foreign and probably infectious. Dish wash sponges and laundry detergent are running surprisingly low, but that may be to save space on the lorries.

What have you learnt about your host country from their panic preferences?

@anothernotherone indeed - some people might need disposable crockery and cutlery under certain circumstances with this. But in the United States our regular stock levels should cope with that. This is the country where convenience is king. Stores have whole aisles of paper plates and disposable cups. I do know some people here who don’t actually have any reusable dishware in their homes. They use paper plates, bowls and plastic cups all the time. Even chain hotels do too. So if they have run out of that stuff here then people really have been panic-buying it.

BritWifeinUSA Hotels use all disposable crockery and people living in their own permanent/ long term home rather than temporary b&b emergency accommodation have no washable plates and glasses/ cups ? Wow!

I think I would say cheaper hotels and motels with self service breakfasts use disposable cutlery and crockery.
More formal establishments use standard cutlery, it more usual than the UK though.

East coast US - paper plates and cups galore in our Walmart. Pretty much the only full shelves left in that aisle.

I haven't actually been food shopping here in a while so I've no idea what's out of stock, but apparently Mainers absolutely will not eat Manhattan Clam Chowder even if it's the only soup left on the shelves.

Chips , wine, beer, loo roll, chicken, beef, Tinned lentils are all gone in Canada.

Apparently the weed shops are doing a roaring trade too.

Caribbean here - all the Waitrose and Tescos products ran very low, along with the English loaves of bread.

Generally we're out of rice and beans and people have stockpiled TP, kitchen roll, disinfectants and rum probably. Cos we're a drinking island..🤣

Alberta. Meat (hahaha) pasta, rice, and toilet paper.
The veggies abound.

Went shopping yesterday in dk. Everything was on the shelves except loo roll. Well, the expensive loo roll was still there. Someone has posted about the lack of yeast, but given that all the kids are at home I think everyone is baking with them.

Interesting here in Sweden

DH had to go to Uppsala (Sweden's 4th largest city) yesterday and found the shops pretty stripped out of most essentials. He was supposed to bring home rice for dinner but needed to go to 5 shops before tracking down a 10kg bag of Basmati.

Today at home in rural Sweden we have just been to the big supermarket 30km and not a sign of panic buying. It was quiet and calm. In fact when you walk in there is a big display of special offer items at reduced prices that included pasta, rice, pasta sauce, canned soup, and tins of hotdogs, The toilet paper section was two-thirds full, In fact the only thing I couldn't find was hand-gel.

Things have calmed the fuck down in my bit of Melbourne. Presumably because ScoMo shouted at Australia: "Stop it!! on the hoarding."

Supermarkets are the ones that get stripped; buy in smaller outlets and you're fine. Except for toilet rolls. Have so many people grown another arsehole?

Excellent alcohol bargains at Dan Murphy's.[o]

Rural France hère....supermarket isn't massive but I managed to get everything I needed. Fish counter closes tomorrow until further notice so we'll definitely struggle without the beautiful seafood.

In the sunny sunshine state.. on the Sunshine Coast..QLD.
The latest panic purchase is alcohol.. the bottle shops have been wiped out.. they are not shutting they are just obviously a necessary item..
personally I've opted for office works as the next big thing. It will go crazy when the boards of parents realise they need actual supplies to home school. Books stationary.. I think that may be the next big item..
don't mention pasta of tins of food. Thankfully there's Costco.. local stores. I may never go to woolco's again after this mayhem..
chin up there's coffee..

I was at Officeworks today, buying a printer. It's already gone nuts, with more people WFH.

At the ink cartridges section I heard an assistant saying to a customer: we can't keep up with the theft of cartridges.

Downtown Manhattan is out of leeks. WTF? I've managed to set up 2 amazon/Whole Foods orders and both times...no leeks.

Bangkok... not bad for panic buying in general (yet). Instant noodle shelves empty! Bread depleted but not all gone. I've been to the expensive import supermarket near me and you can tell it's where the foreigners shop because they're nearly out of bacon and sausages haha! HUGE queues for alcohol section of the shops when a sort of semi-lockdown was announced last week.

Loo roll not a problem at all here... only foreigners buy it because everywhere has butt guns (water hoses). So I can feel a tiny bit smug whenever I see all the stress about loo paper online... this is one thing we will NOT run out of!

Dubai.... in my corner the supermarkets are well stocked and eerily empty as city has enacted partial “strongly recommended” lock-down with evening curfew. Normal cargo flights (necessary for shipments of fresh veg, fruit, meat, dairy) from neighboring countries are arriving as usual. Some retailers have increased the prices of onions and cooking oil in the past week.Apparently in the new-expat-centric “new Dubai” there are shortages of disinfectants, isopropyl alcohol, hand sanitizers, and toilet paper. I’m the only family member who supplements “bum gun” with toilet paper so I expect the 14 rolls in storage to last a while.

Luxembourg.
My partner does the (now) weekly shop but from the reports from when “it” started. We are at the end of our third week of extreme social distancing so only three trips to a supermarket have been made.

At the beginning toilet paper was low but remained available.
Then their appeared to be a shortage of sliced cheddar (normally from ROI)
Last Monday there were no eggs.
What has disappeared completely is pre cut (looks like factory made) white bread that we always have in the freezer as back up.

Luxembourg. Again.
I should have added that as +/-50% of the population are immigrants like us, what does it say about our hosts very efficient supply chain.

There by the way not their. I hate it when my auto correct gets it wrong.

Midwest US, large city..

Someone somewhere has a house packed to the roof with all the TP.
And the sliced bread.

Everything else is looking sparse. DS went out shopping today and described scenes that reminded me of East Germany in the late 80s. I haven't been supermarket shopping for over two weeks.

We may end up eating whatever we can lay our hands on for Easter dinner.

people living in their own permanent/ long term home rather than temporary b&b emergency accommodation have no washable plates and glasses/ cups ? Wow!

Yes, this is a thing. It's convenient but expensive if you add up the cost for a year..

Here in NL, supermarkets are pretty well stocked, but things that have been depleted at different stages (and at different 'peaks' of worry) are both 'obvious' (pasta, loo rolls, tinned tomatoes, rice) and less obvious (oil, flour, salt, butter, crisps!!) everything is more or less available now, except plain flour still (3 different shops on 8 or 9 occasions. I am near 3 different supermarkets of the same chain, and whilst 1 had no oil on about 4 different visits, another had been well stocked throughout.

East Coast USA. One of our chains has put strict limits in place on a huge number of items (you can only get one carton of eggs, 2 tins of tomatoes, etc) and at this point i can buy most things. Their selection is doing better than at the other chains which have only put limits on paper goods. Flour flies out as soon as they get some in and they only have store brand all-purpose usually. You can't even buy it from restaurant supply stores or direct from the mill. Yeast is nowhere to be found. Meat and chicken have improved. Paper goods are next to impossible; as soon as they put some out they are gone. Cleaning supplies are low. Sugar is hit and miss. Fresh fruit and veg are mostly okay--there were a few days at the beginning with some holes. Sliced bread is difficult and the instore bakery has cut down on choice. Apparently Americans also stock up on box mix macaroni and cheese when panic hits because the shelves are completely empty of it!

At the beginning, all tinned and frozen veg, frozen pizza, pasta, tinned soups, dried beans, bags of rice, milk, eggs, butter, meat, all baking supplies--gone. It was absolute carnage.

I don't have young kids anymore so haven't looked myself but I have been told that nappies, wipes, and formula are very hard to get.

THank God, my state has left the liquor stores open. The neighboring one has state owned liquor stores and they have been shut for 3 weeks. I heard there was massive panic buying when they announced it.

I was quite lucky as I had stocked up at Costco on household goods shortly before the panic hit and when a friend said her store was starting to run out, I immediately went and did my shopping early with some extra. I am very glad I did.

I'm in Northern Ireland. There's been plenty of bread of all sorts in my local shop, but baking stuff (flour etc), has been almost sold out every time I've been in, in the last month or so. People were going mad buying toilet rolls a few weeks ago, but that seems to have stopped now (probably because so many shops have restrictions now).

I'm in northern Tanzania, it's hard to get some things normally but nothing has changed. That is not just true for the supermarkets we seem to be going for a head in the sand approach here, except for praying.

I'm in Sydney. DS works in a bottle shop so we don't have to worry about alcohol 😂 Flour and yeast are very hard to find but luckily our local baker will sell us both. Limits on popular things which is sensible. Lots of options for online delivery outside of the big supermarkets, eg I have a butchers delivery coming next week which means I won't have to look for meat for a couple of weeks.