Let’s be safe out there people … it’s madness.

The news is either full of stories about virus doom or virus induced panic buying. I kinda miss the ‘Britain has gone brexit bonkers’ stories now. So with the images of empty shop shelves, I ventured out to the supermarket with a certain amount of trepidation. My extensive survival prep shopping list was a loaf of bread, a pack of Curly Wurlies, a bottle of milk and tea. That will surely tide us through the end of days.

I arrived at 8.40am which normally ensures that I have the shop to myself apart from the three shop assistants. Not this morning. The car park was heaving. Is it the day before Christmas? Inside was not much better. Rammed with shoppers. Not seen a crowd like this since the ‘Everything for a Pound’ Store had a sale.

It was bizarre watching the frantic shopping. Trolleys rammed full. So many seemingly sensible people falling into the panic buying madness. But this was a very Yorkshire panic. People still had time amongst the panic to stop and talk about the weather. In other parts of the country items like toilet paper, hand gel and paracetamol tablets have been stripped as if consumed by a plague of locusts. Here those items were still well stocked. In fact I didn’t see anyone buying them. No the items of panic choice here were different

  • The saver pack of soap bars (4 for a £1)
  • Cadbury’s Chocolate
  • Tins of mushy peas (one chap had a basket filled with just these)
  • Custard powder
  • Cheese
  • Beer, lager and wine.

I have to say that if I was going to panic buy I would rather stock up on £100 worth of beer and chocolate rather than 50 rolls of bog paper.

My hand basket was easily filled with my items until I arrived at the tea section. No Yorkshire Tea. No pigging Yorkshire Tea. Stripped bare. Oh the humanity. I had to buy another brand. Bloody philistines. The virus crisis is so much worse than I ever imagined. Stand by your pitchforks people.

146 thoughts on “Panic buying”

  3. I work at a grocery store in the U.S. and this is absolutely true across the pond – though the tea aisle is currently a safe haven. We are however stripped bare of anything that could conceivably be used to sanitize or disinfect, from rubbing alcohol to hand sanitizer to vinegar to regular, uh, drinking alcohol… Thanks for the laugh!

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      1. Hmm, well, we’re completely out of the aforementioned products and I don’t see new shipments coming in. So I’d say it’s stabilized for now. However, our city just cancelled SXSW (a huge annual festival/tech conference) and all other large gatherings through May 1st, so we’ll see.

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  4. Loved this! My daughter won’t let me go to the grocery and took my list for me today. I feel badly because it is my monthly shop trip so a long list. We haven’t had any outbreaks here but I’m wondering what they will find when they go to the grocery. My sister in Vermont has an outbreak near her and I just saw one today in New Jersey where my son lives. He is a nurse so that’s a bit scary. I’m not panicked but I do think people should be cautious and for Pete’s sake, you should not have to be told to wash your hands🙄😄

    Sent from my iPad

    >

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  5. I felt smug for ordering 200 alcohol wipes to stick in my purse for the normal price of $10, but then they arrived & I saw they are teensy squares to dab skin before a shot. Sigh…

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  7. The panic buying is quite strange to say the least especially where we live where obviously you can’t get a toilet roll for love nor money, personally if the worst comes to the worst I have kept a few handy old newspapers which I will cut into squares as they did during the war. The strangest thing going short here is pasta which I can’t quite see the reason for and as for the Yorkshire tea we are getting a little short ourselves. Here are a couple of links which might help to put this into perspective. https://thediaryofacountrybumpkin.com/2020/02/26/yorkshire-tea/ https://thediaryofacountrybumpkin.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-were-all-doomed/

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  9. Oh, that was a good one! You made me laugh! I do hope you can get your Yorkshire tea tomorrow, though … never know … you could be stuck in the house for weeks … months! I went to the grocery yesterday, and saw no actual empty shelves, but the loo paper shelves were well picked-over. Ah … people. If you want to sell a product, all you really have to do is tell people it might not be available for the next year or so.

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  13. Haven’t seen any problems at any of the 3 stores I normally shop at. I don’t think there’s been any virus reported in San Diego, which is the BIG city by where I live.
    I’d be mad if there was no coffee. I’d have to borrow Ben’s Guy Fawkes mask and create some havoc 😉😂💌

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  16. Oh my gosh, I was so shocked about my trip out today I almost wrote about it instead of the post I had started. Stay tuned, I am going to write what I saw hopefully tomorrow. But it is much of the same! Crazy!

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  19. I work for a famous supermarket brand. Okay, so I slightly exaggerate, but one bloke with a trolley full of loo roll said “it’s only a type of flu”! I thought, “why are you panic buying then?!”

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      1. Hope you’ve had deliveries by now Gary. We’ve taken to shopping in the evening when we know deliveries have just been made and they’re putting them out. Our supermarket closes at 10pm.

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  24. I am still scratching my head over the scarcity of toilet paper. Why toilet paper? It’s a mystery to me. Panic buying is everywhere.

    At work my manager had to order more hand sanitizer and Lysol wipes – she told me we’ve gone through a month’s worth in just a week. Well, I guess my coworkers (and I) have been a bit more thorough in making sure surfaces are wiped down and our hands do not transfer germs to an unsuspecting public. Working with the public is always challenging in cold and fly season but Covid 19 has made us even more conscientious than ever – even though there has not been a single case of it here to date.

    Panic seems to be the norm these days. Sigh.

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      3. I studied journalism and later communications. One of the first things we learned was a bit brutal but when it comes to news the operating principle is if it bleeds it leads. A horrible truth but there it is.

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  26. Lol… your post or the way you said it was a little humorous …

    I would load up on the Cadbury chocolate myself!!

    I went to the store today and thought of you and one of your posts 😄… I should have taken a picture…

    I went to the store to get my coffee and creamer (which plenty to be had- as well as tea… too bad I can’t send you some – we have plenty here!!!) I love my coffee probably same way you love your tea – I would have been beside myself if my coffee was out!!! Then I would have been mad.

    BUT what made me think of your post was you had mentioned toilet paper 🧻 being out like crazy… when you mentioned that – it was normal over here … but now it’s not lol… took us a minute but now that’s flying off the shelves 🤨

    So now those shelves I have never seen so bare – there were 4 rolls left – I bought 2. I wasn’t gonna take all 4 and leave someone else with nothing. But I did need the 2.

    You still can’t find Clorox wipes or hand sanitizer around here at all… I luckily have the sanitizer at home already before all this happened… and I have other things I can use to disinfect things … so I am good there

    I have food… some soups and stuff…

    Water is also going like crazy… which I already have a ton of because I live in the country so I stocked on that the other day for shower purposes lol … I don’t know what everyone else is doing but whatever (the well is fixed now so back to normal but I have a lot of water)

    I also have a lot of Tylenol and Advil due to my surgery area which every so often kinda hurts. (Only the bad side though) just sometimes too much and I have to take something. Plus just good to have – but I don’t have cabinets of it… just 2 bottles a piece

    Our stores are always busy so I didn’t notice a difference with that? Is like right before Thanksgiving 🤨 … all the time!! 🤨

    Just now they are leaving complete shelves totally bare!! Ahh the panic.

    Yeah it’s gone crazy for sure. Just human nature I guess – especially with panic

    You made me kinda laugh with this post also. ✌️

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      1. Here too 🙄… everyone is preparing incase we have to be confined to homes – everyone is starting to REALLY panic.

        I don’t have the space either… my place is tiny. So whatever – guess I’m screwed lol

        Whatever will be, will be ✌️

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  28. I headed to Costco, yesterday, for my normal, monthly supplies gathering. Lysol & Clorox hand wipes were nowhere to be found. There were signs posted that cases of water were at a two case limit. Then, there was the sugar & rice. They had signs that stated five bag limit. We’re talking restaurant size bags. Sugar & rice…gone. What? They’re making rice wine and tending a still? Everything else was there. Kirkland brand toilet paper was gone but, Charmin was still there. Went to a Harris Teeter grocery store. Again, Lysol & Clorox wipes all gone and all the bleach was gone. They left behind spray bottles of the same cleaning solutions. Strange.

    As I entered Costco, I had an employee stop me and wipe the grips on my shopping cart with their employee hand wipes. What good does that do? I’ve already touched it. They didn’t offer to wipe my hands.

    The world has gone full retard.

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  30. Well yeah, I can understand why the chocolate shelves are stripped bare!

    I bought a little more because it’s harder for me to physically get to the supermarket and shop on my own, but nowhere near what some other people have bought. The soap and rice I wanted were out of stock.

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  33. Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been panic buying round here. I’m the other hand, getting to and from work has been a breeze. Now is that because the road works have ended or something else, I wonder?

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  35. This scary but so creepy. It’s like the whole world is shutting down. All the schools around are closed and there is no toilet paper . It’s like you won a prize if you find some. And water as well food is diminishing as well But! A lot of Corona beer here 😂

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  36. I love you all bless is the lord and bless is are god and with that share the love because the word is coming in bless the lord when he come I love y’all all and bless the lord don’t fear anything bless is the word besafe sharing the love but don’t be afraid to be you fear not to show love to one another love y’all

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  37. I hate the fact that the hoarders have grabbed up everything I need: pizzas, candy bars, toilet paper, hand sanitizers, and peanut butter and honey. The biggest slap in the face to me happened this week when one Safeway market placed over 300 petite bottles of hand sanitizers ( at $5.95 each) on the customer courtesy desk and there was no limit on how many a customer could purchase. That my friend is marketing greed in the flesh.

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  39. Most people have got it the wrong way around. Panic buying is caused by shortages, not shortages by panic buying. I have worked in logistics, logistics is not coping. Here’s why:

    There are two completely different supply chains, domestic and commercial. The domestic chain is what you see in shops and supermarkets. The commercial chain is to factory canteens, restaurants, etc. Each supply chain is for different products. 6, & 9 packs of toilet rolls for the domestic supply, big rolls that fasten on walls for the commercial supply.

    But people are not in the factories and offices, pubs and restaurants are closed. So there is a whole lot of big rolls of bog rolls not being used, but as people are posing the same amount but doing more of it at home, hence te domestic supply of bog roll has been hit. People are panic buying because there is a shortage, making it worse.

    The same with bananas, distributed in bunches to the domestic supply, in singles in large boxes on pallets commercially – these are perishable and being dumped.

    Tinned veg. Catering sie tins are no use to families of 3 or 4. There’s plenty of tinned veg, which is in storage for when cafes and restaurants reopen.

    Logistics if finding it difficult to cope. Distribution centres are at full capacity, with some staff in isolation and having to observe social distancing output is slowed down.

    The distribution network is stretched. That is why there’s a shortage and that is why there is panic buying.

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