Corona Virus Concerns

I have found that the smallest queues at our local shops are during lunchtime, when presumably everyone is at home eating!

Our local Aldi has been well stocked throughout the last few weeks, only experiencing temporary shortages of loo roll and pasta during the initial panic buying frenzy. It feels very strange talking to the checkout staff through a plastic "window" though.

Thank you for starting this discussion. 

It's important to have a discussion where we can update each other and share concerns. A polite reminder to all our members though not to start posting about politics as per our Community Guidelines and to keep the conversation friendly supportive and informative. Unfortunately the previous discussion got very heated and we really want to avoid arguments on Club Together as it's now more important than ever for our community to be a supportive and friendly place to be. Many thanks for your understanding. 

I see we have a Dalek at Robin Hood's Bay enforcing lockdown.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-dalek-patrols-streets-ordering-humans-to-self-isolate-11969126

From my experience, Aldi seem to have their supply chain sorted very quickly. Plenty on the shelves, distancing measures observed and all very civilised. Well done Aldi!

You have to realise that the sniffing that dogs do is like us reading a newspaper, they are keeping up with the news from the other reporters,   so if not going to their usual places, when they do it takes a while to get up to date

Our local Co op seems to be getting back to normal with deliveries (about 3 lorries a day )+ milk and bread lorries,it is well stocked now ,,went there this morning and they are now back to baking their "fresh?"rolls and bread ,as the manager says  , those who cleared the shops in their panic, will be at it again after next weekend , when they find out the lock down is not ending

We’re in between town and villages. No shops or pub, so usually drive 7 miles to shop (not the nearest supermarket, but the best, Booths).

But being over 70 we are not doing that, but shopping online at Asda. So far I’ve managed to get deliveries, which I share with our daughter in law (next door). 

And I’ve always been a hoarder (not stockpiler!) so have plenty of reserves in the freezer and pantry. 

But there is a whiff of danger in getting unlabelled leftovers out of the freezer. Today the tasty mince turned out to be a very muddy tasting lentil mush. Why did I bother saving it in the first place?

You are lucky JVB our local co-op, a couple of miles away is always badly stocked and they stopped doing the shop bakery. So it's even worse just now. Which is why I've pursued on line orders. 

Goldie we have a lot of unidentifiable bags in our freezer. Curries and mince meals done in bulk seem to merge into the same colour. The one good thing is my dogged insistence on freezing roasted tomatoes from our greenhouse, there are usually spare bags left over after a few months but this time round they are being used. Same for chunks of peeled cooking apples.

Still no bread flour...but a bag of spelt flour has been substituted by Waitrose today. I've only tried spelt bread in sandwiches in a local café, now what to do with it...better look in the bread thread?! (Thankyou Roger Saul for growing this as you can't eat Mulberry Handbags...not that I've got one of those either. )

I doubt that Aldi have any better supply chain compared to other supermarkets but their main advantage in the current crisis is that they don't have a home delivery service. Most of the big name supermarkets are trying to satisfy both instore and online demand and that is why their supply lines have come under a lot more pressure. Apart from Ocado, who have a dedicated warehouse/s, virtually all the online deliveries are picked in the local branch which adds even more pressure on instore stock levels. 

As we are self isolating we are not going to the shops so however well any of them are stocked doesn't particularly make a difference to us. Fortunately we had a nice big delivery from Waitrose this morning which has managed to restock most of the things we were running short of. Even got a couple of packs of toilet rolls, shouldn't need anymore for a while!!!

David