Food shortages.
I suspect most have seen news articles showing empty supermarket shelves. How many have actually found difficulty in the last few months? The only thing that I have not seen recently is crayfish tails.
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I'm not going into supermarkets very often as we intend sticking with home deliveries. We often have missing items but nothing of concern. Our local co-op has empty shelves, Parmesan was one recent missing item. I can manage without these things, they are not essential to life.
This year we stepped up veg growing at home and even just a few basic things like tomatoes and winter greens are worth the effort. OH has said he'd keep chickens again if things looked really tough! Let's hope this won't be the case but we need to adapt to "wait rather than expect."
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Whilst there are undoubtedly some supply chain issues, I can’t help think it is made worse by scaremongering in the media and it’s profile on social media. Our local Nextdoor postings are full of it, which unfortunately encourages folk to panic buy.
It shouldn’t be an issue raising it on CT😂
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We have seen a few gaps recently, but nothing really significant.
Flavoured sparkling water seems to be in short supply.
The only thing we were particularly looking for but could not find was brioche hot dog rolls (as we are having Callum to visit).
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Our local Co-op is suffering and the shelves in Lidl look as if they've had a plague of locusts attack them. Elsewhere, it's nothing of consequence.
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Blimey, crayfish tails, parmesan and brioche rolls - there's posh! (Only joking folks!
)Had to make a rare visit to Sainsburys yesterday (and, BTW, I was shocked at the number of folk not wearing masks, pretty much a 50/50 split I'd estimate.)
No problem with fruit & veg, but not the usual selection of fish, loads of empty shelves on the pasta section and tinned pulses (no chickpeas or butter beans), plus, most distressingly a few gaps on the wine shelves!
I do think there is a genuine problem now and in the months to come, but hopefully nothing to the degree that's been publicised.
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Well, maybe surprised more than shocked.
Personally, I do feel it was a mistake to remove that mandate earlier and, if one is to believe the latest reports, there is every chance that it will be reimposed later in the year.
We are in Wales, in a cottage near Rhossili in a couple of weeks time. So that is a useful reminder, and using masks will be no hardship for us.
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The larger supermarkets have one or two gaps but I've not thought I've missed out on anything.
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As posted on another thread the manager at our local coop this morning was saying cutomers were not helping by "panic buying" again ,if they see we have an item in ,that a couple of days ago we had sold out ,by buying more than normal of that ,item
Also in conversation he was saying that for the foreseable future ,because of lack of drivers in the supply chain,, manufacturers are concentrating on the more popular items that have longer shelf life ,rather than a larger range.
One company in the supply chain was on our local new channel and was selling some of their HGVs as they just cannot get drivers
There are at least two train leasing companies that are converting older passenger units units into 100mph freight trains for medium to long distance deliveries , which can as now service city centres without problems with traffic and low emission/congestion charges and then be delivered by EV rigid goods vehicles to customers,getting round the HGV drivers shortages
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The only issues in my area is choice of ‘usually bought items’ the same item by another brand are available at higher prices. All item prices generally are up too but that was tipped by everyone except brexiteers. One thing that is in really short supply is brexiteers they seem to have gone🤷🏻♂️🙄
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It's probably a bit dramatic to speak of "food shortages". We have been mainly cocooned behind food deliveries since April last year. We do have a few subs each week and sometimes things not available but by the next week they are back in stock, so more a case of supply blips? However when we went into Waitrose the other day (the same branch and day as our delivery but we needed a few extra bits) I was surprise how low stocked some of the shelves were. Now whether that was because people were buying more or whether it was genuine shortages I don't know.
David
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None of the above are a problem here. Not sure about the particular Merlot butI am able to get either of the couple that I choose for cooking. Not sure about cooking apless or water cress as we grow our own.
The main reason for driver pay is the pay rates and T&Cs n my opinion
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McGuigan merlot available in Sainsburys down here. I'm a cheapskate, I buy Penguin Sands.
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No shortages in East Norfolk
As far as HGV drivers are concerned:
Large Goods Vehicle tests dropped by nearly 43,000 since Mar 2020, when COVID struck
CPC tests (needed by professional truck drivers) dropped by 98% (Q1 2020 compared to Q1 2021)
Only 48 CPC tests were conducted in the first three months of this year. Recruiting 27 new examiners to speed up the process
The global situation is not any better - there are driver shortages almost everywhere except AfricaTruck driver shortages globally expected to increase by 25%+ this year, says International Road Transport Union
Germany was already reporting 45,000 vacancies back in 2018, says British International Freight Association
No.1 reason for driver shortage was ‘drivers retiring’, according to (UK) Road Haulage Association survey in July3 -
Many shortages of UK HGV drivers it seems is down to the work enviroment, many older drivers are retiring and it is a very at times lonely job, that with so many more regulations does not fit in with what the younger generations that have been to "university?"think is for them?
When we had a bad spell of winter weather few years ago.and deliveries to our supermarkets were disrupted, I was told by my daughter who was then involved with John Lewis distribution, it was their Eastern European drivers who were keeping deliveries going as many Uk drivers either "could not or were not well enough?"to get into work
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We have noticed some gaps on supermarket shelves which usually are filled the following week all except for a particular brand of runny honey that we have been after, that has not been on the shelves in any of our local stores for about 3 months now.....global warming, shortage of bees or bees on strike maybe
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It’s not the shortages of certain items that is the only concern. The quality of some of the fresh fruit and veg in the supermarkets is shocking at the moment. I went rummaging for courgettes in our local Tesco before we came away, and some of them were just bags of mush, rotten already. Enjoyed being in Cornwall though, there’s always lots of lovely fresh veg for sale at the roadside, and we stopped off at such a stand very close to Marazion Site a few times. Grown in someone’s small holding just over the road. Best quality veg I have seen for ages.
No doubt some will be panic buying certain items.0 -
Just completed my Click & Collect order from Sainsburys for tomorrow. Stuff I ordered earlier in the week (I set up an order then amend the day before) now not available: long life Grapefruit juice (this has been very hit & miss) kabanos, dried milk, dates (the ones from the baking isle). We will wait & see what I dont actually get tomorrow.
There have been items unavailable each fortnight for a couple of months now. Sometimes they are available in store next time I go in. e.g. low sugar baked beans, sweetner tablets, fine sea salt (as against coarse)
Apparently, according to one report I read, last week there were no bottled water deliveries in the east of England. Certainly those shelves in Sainsburys have been empty for about three weeks (maybe people will have to drink water from the tap!!!), as have shelves of Long Life juices.
There isnt apparently a shortage of goods, just of deliveries.
But none of us will go hungry because of this.
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It doesn’t seem much KJ but it’s a 20% hike on £1 jar🤷🏻♂️
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It's been quite "interesting" for the last 3 weeks as we've been away for that time at various points in the South West so have popped into whichever shop happened to be near to where we were when we wanted some shopping.
Been to most apart from Waitrose, although I did notice one in Dorchester today but didn't need anything, and think that the Co-Op has seen the most shortages, particularly in Fruit and Veg section. We have consistently found a shortage of some of the same items, such as a certain Fruit Loaf for Mrs WN. The GF pasta seems to have been snapped up, last time in Covid shortages it was blamed on nonGF buyers who couldn't get normal stuff, and the usual items such as Toilet Rolls.
I do think generally that shelves are not as well stocked as usual but we haven't starved yet and I haven't resorted to fighting with Herring Gulls for scraps. It might yet come to that though.
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