What has happened to the UK??

growstuff

Forsythia

We use Lidl, Waitrose and Aldi. No shortages in our area whatsoever. Plenty of meat in Lidl plus poultry and fruit and veg of every kind.
Fresh water from taps, hot baths, a real third world country…..

Wow! Maybe we could all move to this Utopian area!

There's bits of Northern England which still don't have any of those things after 10 days, I believe. Including water in the taps.

Hetty58

Shopping in Tesco must be depressing at the best of times. Right now, the idiots around here are buying twice their usual trolley load - just because it's December and they're in Christmas panic mode. They fling it out next week in their rubbish (when they haven't been able to eat it all) and do it all over again.

Why send parcels and cards abroad? Do it the easy way and order online, gift wrapped, for delivery there to cut out the middle man (you).

You don’t know what will be garbage and what won’t. Let people shop as they need

growstuff

Forsythia

We use Lidl, Waitrose and Aldi. No shortages in our area whatsoever. Plenty of meat in Lidl plus poultry and fruit and veg of every kind.
Fresh water from taps, hot baths, a real third world country…..

Wow! Maybe we could all move to this Utopian area!

Feel free to do so. We are in south London.

Winterwhite I agree with your post and I think KT has a point even if using the 'living in a third world' throwaway comment is a bit out of date and opened her up to unnecessary criticism.
Covid has muddied the waters but the lack of lorry drivers, seasonal workers, hospitality workers along with shortage of goods in the shops and increased prices on many items is squarely down to Brexit. As are tiresome forms and increased costs involved with sending items abroad and ordering from abroad. The days when you could take your pick of excellent European produce are gone. This year there were almost no soft fruits in the supermarkets. Local butchers and street markets don't have organic or ethically produced meat and produce either and to some of us, that is important.

Whilst I agree that comparisons to the third world are a bit over the top, all the posters blaming the OP for shopping at Tesco are missing the point, possibly deliberately in some cases. Although I generally find that Aldi and Lidl are well stocked, only the truly deluded would not admit there have been gaps on shelves over the past months, sometimes of inexplicable items, bleach being one. Luckily I do not have any EU packages to send though!

Alegrias1

growstuff

Forsythia

We use Lidl, Waitrose and Aldi. No shortages in our area whatsoever. Plenty of meat in Lidl plus poultry and fruit and veg of every kind.
Fresh water from taps, hot baths, a real third world country…..

Wow! Maybe we could all move to this Utopian area!

There's bits of Northern England which still don't have any of those things after 10 days, I believe. Including water in the taps.

GillT57

Whilst I agree that comparisons to the third world are a bit over the top, all the posters blaming the OP for shopping at Tesco are missing the point, possibly deliberately in some cases. Although I generally find that Aldi and Lidl are well stocked, only the truly deluded would not admit there have been gaps on shelves over the past months, sometimes of inexplicable items, bleach being one. Luckily I do not have any EU packages to send though!

Funnily enough, I’m not deluded. I find Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose plus the occasional foray into Iceland provides us with all we need, bleach included.

The usual sweeping statements.
This year there were almost no soft fruits in the supermarkets. Local butchers and street markets don't have organic or ethically produced meat and produce either.

No soft fruits; no organic or ethically produced meat.
Not anywhere?
For the whole year?
Really ??

You go to 4 different supermarkets to meet all your needs?

This government is certainly acting akin to that of a corrupt banana republic - if you don’t like the rules- ignore them, lie about them or excuse any rule breaking by cronies.

I do apologise for the thoughtless "third world" comment. As others have realised, it was a throw-away, silly thing to say. I'm usually very much a glass half-full (or overflowing even!) person. It just suddenly struck me that in lots of small ways, life is getting a bit worse. I'll go and give myself a good talking to!

I suppose it varies. I live near the coast, could go to the local fish market where they have a retail shop and get fish straight off the boat or go to the local fish shop where they will have bought fish at the market early that morning. On the other hand our water is vile and I have a water filter which makes it OK for tea/coffee/cooking/washing but I still can't drink a glass of it.

I've found it hard to get soft drinks, I'm teetotal so it's annoying to walk down rows and rows of wine/spirits/beer but not be able to buy a bottle of my favourite fizzy drink.

I shop in Lidl as it is my local supermarket but it isn't great for fruit and veg, they never seem to last long. On the other hand I love the bakery. Probably too much!

So I'm pretty sure it will vary.

I've been to Aldi today to do my"big shop" and there were a few gaps in the meat aisle but an assistant told me that they'd had a daily delivery and simply sold out quickly; there'll be another delivery late tonight. The rest of the shelves were heaving with fresh fruit and veg, bread products and dairy. As for the fish and cooked meats counters being closed in Tesco and Sainsbury's; that's nothing to do with Brexit; they were closed down in all branches at the beginning of the COVID pandemic so that customers queuing up, waiting to be served, could be avoided. It was then decided not to reopen them because they weren't cost effective. Third world country this ain't.

Hetty58

Shopping in Tesco must be depressing at the best of times. Right now, the idiots around here are buying twice their usual trolley load - just because it's December and they're in Christmas panic mode. They fling it out next week in their rubbish (when they haven't been able to eat it all) and do it all over again.

Why send parcels and cards abroad? Do it the easy way and order online, gift wrapped, for delivery there to cut out the middle man (you).

How do you know how many they’ll be catering for? You’d probably have thought the same if you’d seen me shopping for 9 adults who were all staying for at least 4 nights over Christmas. When I was also determined not to have to go shopping for anything for a week after Christmas.

I have noticed here in France that there is not the normal variety of types of apples etc and the same with some green veg but it has been caused by our strange weather earlier this year which decimated crops of fruit etc.
As for parcels from U.K. - I have told all my family not to think of sending anything because I have seen people saying that they have needed to pay duty etc which is way higher than the value of the gift so some people now are refusing to accept things from the U.K.

JaneJudge

You go to 4 different supermarkets to meet all your needs?

I certainly do. Some days I go to all four twice in one day. Saturdays I may go to all four three times in one day. What do you do?

I go to work

JaneJudge

I go to work

I’m happily retired.

I online shop, with delivery, from various supermarkets, not Waitrose, too expensive. Use the local butcher (who have fish too) and the farm shop for veg; sprout tops today, not had any real issues, maybe it’s regional?

I too am retired but I have better things to do than visit numerous supermarkets. Blimey.

GillT57

I too am retired but I have better things to do than visit numerous supermarkets. Blimey.

You have to have a sense of humour Gill. Sadly very few on Gransnet do.

GrandmaKT

OK, so I'm just a grumpy old bugger!
It just brought it home to me doing things that I only do once a year, like posting xmas presents and parcels, that things have got worse over the last couple of years. I know I can use Amazon etc,. but I do like to buy little, personal gifts.

Just to climb aboard the bandwaggon of those piling in on you, GrandmaKT, I have to point out that you cannot (physically) be both a grandma and a bugger; no matter how old and grumpy…..

We haven't had a butcher for several years now (We used to have a very good, but expensive, one) and none of the surrounding towns seem to have one.

Catfood is still problematic in all the supermarkets. Sainsbury had a spell with very few cleaning products. Waitrose has had several weeks with almost empty freezers. BTW Waitrose doesn't have to be expensive. I used to do my mother in law's shopping there and she only had her state pension to live on. You just have to stick to own brands and not get lured into trading up.

Well I have to say for months now any supermarket I have visited (mostly Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl and Co-op) have consistently had some empty shelves. Today in Lidl there was no granola, and porridge has only just come in stock after 3 weeks of being missing. Shortage of toilet rolls in the past has just been rectified but now no tissues. My favourite liquid laundry soap has been missing for weeks and dog biscuits too. In Morrisons on Sunday there was no spinach and hardly any green veg at all. So although some areas of the UK may have recovered from shortages, not all have.

We have a weekly order from our fairly small local Waitrose. They seem to have everything we need - meat, fruit, veg, cat food etc. There were difficulties during the first lockdown with things like flour and pasta. We have a Co-op just down the road where we can top up our weekly shop with milk, meat etc. At the moment all seems to be well. Actually, the only empty shelves I’ve seen over the past year or so, had been loo paper! It didn’t matter though as we buy our loo paper in bulk from Who Gives A Crap.