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Originally posted by jwdd27 View PostRetail Dispatches
The public are still not getting the message from the large retailers, and it's now approaching a crisis.
The situation remains the same - there is enough food to feed everyone in the country comfortably. There is enough toilet roll to wipe everyone's arse. There are no breaks in supply, a small avian flu outbreak at one egg producer aside. The problem is that people are buying more than they need. They are buying two months' worth of food, when they only need a week's worth. The retail industry does not have the logistics or personnel to satisfy this level of buying. We do for a few days around Christmas, but that is with temporary workers in place across the supply chain, no one on annual leave, and minimal levels of sick. It takes prior planning and is backed up with the experience of many years of previous Christmases, and extremely predictable shopping patterns, peaking on 23rd December. It can't just be turned back on in a week. At the moment we're able to provide 40-50% extra stock every night, but when your sales are up by 70, 80% it doesn't make much difference.
But where we are now is customers see footage of empty shelves and it triggers something in their brains that they are going to go without, so they MUST GO SHOPPING. So they turn up early, strip the shelves again because things are running short, must buy more than they need, then other customers turn up and see empty shelves, must share this to social media, which sends more people out to the shops because there are shortages and we're going to be stuck in the house with no food or bog roll. And we'll go to several shops, potentially infecting countless other shoppers and staff.
Basically retail is now moving away from peacetime processes and working together to try and slow the public down:
- limiting customers to 3 of any product. You don't need more than that, leave some other people. Just buy what you NEED.
- closing cafes, as people now shouldn't be using them anyway, they take up a small amount of delivery (mostly frozen), and they need cleaning to a higher standard and we need the cleaners' time to clean and sanitise the stores to a better standard (photos of dirty, empty shelves not good)
- closing counters - rotisserie, deli, fish, meat. All are labour intensive, take up delivery space and as food production areas they take more cleaning as above.
- cutting product range - top selling lines take priority, the bottom 20% selling lines get turned off. Not great for choice but easier to supply and keep full. So you'll get regular semi-skimmed milk, but not skimmed organic.
- cutting opening hours - a lot of larger stores are 24 hours, which has meant shoppers grabbing straight from delivery pallets through the night, leaving shelves already half empty first thing in the morning. Whe this is all over night trading won't return. It was brought in because everyone was doing it, but the regular night time clientelle of drunks, mentally ill and thieves in various combinations mean it hasn't made financial sense for a while.
- rapid recruitment - possibly a few weeks away, but there are efforts underway to recruit laid off restaurant, shop and hotel staff, plus delivery drivers to the above, to move over to retail short term to get us through the crisis, especially when retail workers begin to fall ill (which will happen soon) There are barriers, legalities and red tape far above my pay grade, but this move in particular evokes wartime.
The above can only work if shoppers change their shopping habits, or are made to change their habits:
- only go shopping when it is essential, i.e. you have run out of food and have nothing to eat. "I need", not "I would like". If you have enough to eat, you don't need to go shopping. The supermarkets will not close and they will have stock, if you are sensible.
- come on your own if possible - now is not the time for a family outing, especially when no one is getting tested. I'm very worried that schools closing will see parents deciding that the best place for bored kids is a supermarket. The schools have closed so that people don't move around so much, it's not half term.
- only buy what you need, or in caps ONLY BUY WHAT YOU NEED.
- stop buying flour, you don't know how to make bread, and bread will not run out
- take it seriously. Every shopping trip is a potentially life threatening infection risk for you, other shoppers and staff. It's not "everyone's fighting over bog roll, LOL". This will cost lives.
- summing up the above, Essential shopping trips only.
I don't think the above will happen without coercion. I'm fairly sure that Johnson's emergency bill will entail some Italian/Spanish/French style control of people's movement (with hopefully some rudimentary temperature testing of those out and about). It's what is needed, because people have no idea how to behave responsibly. My personal prediction is the army on street corners by the end of the month.
What I'd also like to see is some public information films - get some TV cameras in an ICU so that the public can see patients hooked up to ventilators on the brink of death, and that this isn't "just flu".
Blimey, long post but reflects a frustrating, stressful and worrying time, hope it helps.
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In terms of telling people not to hoard flour because they don't know how to bake bread, that's not true for everyone. Flour is immensely useful for us. I make pancakes, yorkshire puddings, crumbles, cakes, and my husband uses a bread maker to make our own bread.
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Originally posted by delicatemoth View PostLandlords gonna landlord - https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/lan...navirus-fears/
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Originally posted by MsDI don't know why or how they're backing up prison staff but I know what I heard, and I'm a bit pissed off at being doubted, tbh.
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Milkandmore have stopped accepting new customers. I already had an account and I think I've just managed to set up a weekly delivery of milk, eggs, bread, fruit and veg, but their website is clearly struggling so I will wait and see whether it's actually worked.
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I went to my local corner shop and it was well stocked. Got the things that weren't in Asda yesterday. Everyone in there was complaining about the panic buyers with a general sense of disdain for idiots. I also bought a salted caramel Twix out of curiosity.
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People on here really need to calm down and stop being/Taking things personal.
It's the Corona Virus, not the 14th Century Black death, we all need to get a grip and stop panicking and tearing each other apart.
My mum is at home and comfy, If it hasn't killed her off (yet) then maybe we need to drastically lower our fear levels.
You know things are messed up when David Icke is making more sense than the people on TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMTZu6_TjU8
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My gf has just started a new job, no social distancing on the office floor/staggered breaks in force, no plans to wfh despite issuing laptops to staff and her job being admin that can be done from home.
i can't say where she works obvs but it's terrifying these lads aren't enforcing govt recs.
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