Supermarkets - the Megathread

Why is there no flour? Bought over €100 of groceries today in Tesco and the only 2 things they didn't have were flour and hand soap.

The latter I can understand, but what's the story with the flour, there was none of any variety. Have we all decided to become artisan bakers while on lockdown?

loyatemu wrote: »

Why is there no flour? Bought over €100 of groceries today in Tesco and the only 2 things they didn't have were flour and hand soap.

The latter I can understand, but what's the story with the flour, there was none of any variety. Have we all decided to become artisan bakers while on lockdown?

People are baking because they need something to do also lots of peoples favourite cake shops, etc are closed.

I have to say of my local Supermarket's Dunnes and Tesco have the best setup now with Lidl next and well Aldi are not very good. They have no sanitiser for washing the hands in or no organisation for people going in and out. My Dunnes just recently put screens up for there staff and Tesco and Tesco have it that its one in when one comes out now. They were a bit slow in the beginning Tesco but are now second to Dunnes who were first to have an out and an in entrance set up.

Alun wrote: »

Tell me about it ... we bake our own bread in a breadmaker, and when all this started we thought we'd be fine with a reasonable stock of flour and yeast, but we're coming close to running out and can't find strong flour or yeast anywhere now.

I got the strong flour from Kells but running low on yeast if you find any keep us posted. The Kells people were really nice recommend a flour and it worked perfect worked out 23.5 euro for 16kg of flour.

smallgarden wrote: »

Has anyone a summary of all the shops priority shopping times? Thanks

I think
Supervalu is 8am - 9am.
Tesco Monday, Wednesday and Friday before 9am.
Lidl 9an - 11am
Aldi 11am - 1pm
Dunnes 11am -1pm.

Alun wrote: »

Tell me about it ... we bake our own bread in a breadmaker, and when all this started we thought we'd be fine with a reasonable stock of flour and yeast, but we're coming close to running out and can't find strong flour or yeast anywhere now.

Holland & Barrett sell vital wheat gluten, it is 81% protein. 5g added to every ~120g of plain flour in a recipe will convert it to strong flour.

Working evening shift so I'm travelling to work at 3pm and home again around 3am. Housework and laundry and tea then bed around 5am. I'm finding it a little difficult to get to the shop to get groceries.
Very much a minor problem in the current situation and definitely not something that can be rectified as I think it's the most important thing that the elderly can shop in peace but I'm gonna come out of this both obese and malnourished from just eating tea and toast and penguin bars.
I need to get my alarm clock set and get motivated! I have all the essentials as I did buy a bit extra every week since it started in China but I could do with a top up.

Shelflife wrote: »

Plenty of flour, pasta, eggs toilet paper bread milk in the small shops.

People driving 35km round trips to queue for ages only to return to us and find we had everything they needed on their doorstep.

Support your local shops folks !

Agreed.

I go to tesco once a week and am limited as no car so can't carry that much, but I try to get most stuff there and then top up with the non essentials in another shop later in the week. It costs a few quid extra but tesco once a week is more than enough.

Snow Garden wrote: »

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-outrage-bins-pictured-filled-21773469

I just cannot understand some people.

I stocked up a little once this was on the horizon, but I was literally thinking of what I could buy so that the cupboards wouldn't run bare. I bought a little extra of the following;
-rice, pasta, egg noodles
-eggs
-yoghurt
-kitchen roll/toilet paper
-frozen veg (peppers, spinach etc)
-mince, chicken, prawns (freezer)
-tins of tomatoes, coconut milk, pineapple,
-beans, lentils and other pulses
-hardy veg that lasts ages like onions, carrots, celery etc (I don't pay attention to dates on items like this - if it looks good, its good.)
-salamis and hams with long dates

When I say extra, I mean like maybe 2x on what I'd normally have in the house. Not 10x and I didnt buy extra of anything extra of anything with a short shelf life because of course it would end up in the bin.

I'm glad I did it because I was ill almost 2 weeks ago and we've been isolating. We only needed friends to drop us in one additional shop which was mostly fresh items like milk, salad veg, fruit etc, which obviously made it nicer for us, but we could have survived on what we had. I could not get an online shopping date soon enough so we were lucky to have people to drop stuff in for us.

We didnt waste anything and everything we have now will get used. I'm finished my quarantine tomorrow and will be going to the supermarket to shop for my parents (70's) who will be needing a top up shop themselves at this rate.

Once again small shops are the place to go. I got flour and *whispers* hand sanitiser in a centra this morning along with everything else. My weekly shop done.

Yester wrote: »

Those bananas look grand.

I'm sure they are.

Such headless chicken behaviour - "panic, must buy everything in sight! - oh, look, bananas!"


Gets home....."I don't actually like bananas".

The_Honeybadger wrote: »

Lol was thinking the same those bananas are perfect, although I have no doubt there is a lot of waste after all the ridiculous bulk buying. Anybody who bulk bought perishable items like meat is just completely stupid.

Stupid and clearly don't understand how freezers work.