Is there an actual "Pingdemic" or are we all getting shafted by Brexit?

[Fambo Number Mive]

No doubt they will claim that #FBPE types are buying up all the alcohol or something.

[steveh]

When people first started posting photos of empty shelves I assumed it was mostly the FBPE lot finding rare cases at out-of-the-way locations at the end of the day as here the supermarkets were all fully stocked. I do though live in London and massive distribution centres for Sainsbury's and Tesco are close by. However, the last two or three weeks it's been noticeable that more specialist foods have been going out of stock and not been replenished. The local Sainsbury's had already cut the range of products in order to fit in an Argos too. More recently there have been absences for several days of some common lines - fruit juice and cooking oil currently. It's also noticeable that fruit and vegetables are a lot closer to their use-by dates.

[Attila]

Great (genuinely) twitter thread about the logistics of all this and the decisions hauliers and supermarkets have to make about what to prioritise (cheap booze, it turns out): https://twitter.com/garius/status/1419573124589309956

Not only an interesting thread, but I've realised I was housemates briefly with this guy back about 15 years ago. He's awesome (very funny & intelligent guy).

Yeps, been seeing all sorts of things missing from shelves here. Mr Attila was on a quest to find salad cream for a few weeks, and now apparently there's a shortage of cheap dog-egg bags. The one common brand of cat food preferred by our clowder has been hard to get, as well.

[Key]

A workmate of mine's uncle used to be a HGV driver, but he is retired. He recently received a phone call from his old firm asking if they can tempt him back out of retirement to cover the shortage. He said no. He's 78.

[Jack Shaftoe]

Not only an interesting thread, but I've realised I was housemates briefly with this guy back about 15 years ago. He's awesome (very funny & intelligent guy).

Coo, fancy that! I've followed him immediately, I like the cut of his jib.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

A workmate of mine's uncle used to be a HGV driver, but he is retired. He recently received a phone call from his old firm asking if they can tempt him back out of retirement to cover the shortage. He said no. He's 78.

DRIVE FOR BITERN

HAVE YOU EVER DRIVEN A LORRY?

IT'S LIKE CARS BUT BIGGER

GREABITERN NEEDS YOU

ONLY 4 TRUE PATRIOT

[Kankurette]

I noticed a huge gap in Sainsbury's when I was there yesterday, not sure what section but I think it was one of the alcohol lanes. The Co-Op's had them too. I mean, it's not like we're in Soviet Russia but this is a thing that is happening.

[JamesTC]

Lidl is out of low calorie ice cream and seems relatively bare in the soft drink section.

[The Culture Bunker]

Both the main Tesco and Metro version near me seemed short on some items yesterday - booze and bread, for two. Ready meal section looked a bit bare too.

[mothman]

Coo, fancy that! I've followed him immediately, I like the cut of his jib.

He has an eclectic range of interests - history, transport in particular - and a wealth of experience in systems design. An absolute must-follow. Plus a love-hate relationship with next door's cat - aka #NotMyCat - who spends a lot of time round there.

[Pranet]

There is a Sainsburys and a Morrisons round here. The Sainsburys is very gappy but the Morrisons seems pretty much ok. 

[imitationleather]

All this talk of booze shortages has got me imagining that we may get to the point where Jermaine Jenas is on The One Show having to explain to people how to safely taper to avoid grand mal seizures. And we thought last year was dystopian!

[bakabaka]

[Bernice]

That's the smuggest shit I ever saw

[Ferris]

DRIVE FOR BITERN

HAVE YOU EVER DRIVEN A LORRY?

IT'S LIKE CARS BUT BIGGER

GREABITERN NEEDS YOU

ONLY 4 TRUE PATRIOT

Laughed

[Attila]

Our closest/local is a Waitrose; when I was there last Friday there was absolutely nothing save 4 or 5 random boxes of cereal in the cereal/breakfast aisle. Catfood was also nearly empty, too (a few off-brand things, but absolutely no kitten food/kibble, which is what I get for the hedgehogs). Several shelves in other places had the few items spread out artfully to cover up the bare larder.

Re: Garius (the twitter guy mentioned above): he was an absolute nut about history, really keen. I'm still pals with one of his close friends; he'd be chuffed to know he's got fans (and making people smile with his cat adventures).

[Theremin]

DRIVE FOR BITERN

HAVE YOU EVER DRIVEN A LORRY?

IT'S LIKE CARS BUT BIGGER

GREABITERN NEEDS YOU

ONLY 4 TRUE PATRIOT

Beautiful, very strong CLEAN 4 DA KWEEN vibes.

[Icehaven]

Our local Sainsbury's has loads of empty shelves, and they've started putting cardboard space fillers (like the ones in the spoof pic above) with outlines of rows of bottles and packets on. I don't know what the thinking is there, that something on the shelf looks better than nothing? (it doesn't, it just draws attention to what should be there but isn't) And I'm intrigued to know if they've always had similar props or they're a recent thing in response to shortages in the first lockdown and now Brexit. They look comical tbh, might as well literally have "nothing to see here" written on them.

[Blue Jam]

Went to werk today only to find I couldn't access the one facility I really needed to access because all the staff have pinged and are self-isolating. Fucksake.

Dunno about Brexit but I picked up some lateral flow tests today. Fuckit I want to get in on this skiving while I still can.

Great (genuinely) twitter thread about the logistics of all this and the decisions hauliers and supermarkets have to make about what to prioritise (cheap booze, it turns out)

Aye fair enough

[MoreauVasz]

I thought something was off when we went from 'the track and trace app is shit, nobody uses it' to 'so many people are getting pinged that the fabric of society is starting to break down'.

[GMTV]

From an environmental perspective this is a good thing. Although I don't think many brexit voters will have had that in mind at the time.

[Barry Admin]

Moving to GB.

Just saw on Sky News that the Star are reporting we're running out of chips/potatoes.

[touchingcloth]

Thread title sounds a bit racist. Careful.

[touchingcloth]

Moving to GB.

Just saw on Sky News that the Star are reporting we're running out of chips/potatoes.

They've got it horse before cart, arse about face, chip afore potato.

[Barry Admin]

They actually never specified potatoes, just chips. I'm making a leap here and speculating that the potato supply will also be hit.

Edit: actually it appears frozen chips will be hit particularly hard.

[Sebastian Cobb]

That's the smuggest shit I ever saw

big 'ian dunt's learned photoshop' energy

[Ferris]

Scale of 1 - 10 how bad is the food supply stuff over there? It's hard to get a handle on it because all I see is the odd photo of an empty shelf, but that's how our grocery stores were for March and April 2020, and it was only for some stuff, and then it was all basically fine again.

Is it like that? Or a bigger issue?

[Psybro]

Our supermarket delivery six pack of salt and vinegar got changed to 'assorted', that's not even a flavour

[touchingcloth]

Scale of 1 - 10 how bad is the food supply stuff over there? It's hard to get a handle on it because all I see is the odd photo of an empty shelf, but that's how our grocery stores were for March and April 2020, and it was only for some stuff, and then it was all basically fine again.

Is it like that? Or a bigger issue?

Everyone I know from there has starved. 🍱 so a 3.5 I think.

[Mr Banlon]

I went into Wilkos on Wednesday to pick up some birdseed/garden bird stuff and the pet aisle was looking pretty bare in the way of pet foodstuffs. Not been to a big supermarket in a year and a half, but the Express/Metro jobs seem to have a lot of empty shelf space recently.