How Big is Your No Deal Brexit Food Stash?

[rick]

Re: cheddar, its because most people expect to buy a big pack of it for £3.50. Tastes completely nondescript or of added lactic acid (for 'maturity') usually ... but there is a big market for it.
From Morrisons they have bags of 'wonky' onions which are just small (but perfectly formed.) They are great because you can make a sandwich and not have half an onion left over.

 

[Margaid]

Re: cheddar, its because most people expect to buy a big pack of it for £3.50. Tastes completely nondescript or of added lactic acid (for 'maturity') usually ... but there is a big market for it.
From Morrisons they have bags of 'wonky' onions which are just small (but perfectly formed.) They are great because you can make a sandwich and not have half an onion left over.

Other supermarkets have "wonky" vegetables, but being on my own I want to be able to buy what I need. Our Tuffins supermarket has far more loose fruit and veg than stuff in packets; when I buy onions for example I can pick a selection of sizes. Same if I but local Cox apples. The only stuff that is never loose are the berry fruits and in the UK season they come from local fruit farms and the imported stuff . They don't have a deli or fish counter so cheeses are all prepacked but most of it is UK produced (no-one in the UK makes Manchego!)

Their social distancing has always been excellent as was their "rationing" when people came from outside the area in the first lockdown because Tuffins had loo rolls. I feel completely safe shopping there!

 

[dinosaw]

It's the fault of the supermarkets and by extension us the consumer. As a whole we don't want to pay an honest price for food. No reason at all why we should be importing cheese, milk, beef or lamb on the scale that we do.

This little piece from the BBC shows how we spend about half as much, in percentage terms, on our food than we did in 1957.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42735294

 

[dianefairhall]

Re: cheddar, its because most people expect to buy a big pack of it for £3.50. Tastes completely nondescript or of added lactic acid (for 'maturity') usually ... but there is a big market for it.

Yes, I've bought some of that stuff by mistake - it has the consistency and flavour of soap. If I want cheddar I can buy Fountains Gold, Mull of Kintyre or Isle of Mull cheddar. Lincolnshire Poacher is good, too.

 

[rick]

Yes, I've bought some of that stuff by mistake - it has the consistency and flavour of soap. If I want cheddar I can buy Fountains Gold, Mull of Kintyre or Isle of Mull cheddar. Lincolnshire Poacher is good, too.

Unfortunately, we dont see any of those around here. Well I think I may have seen Lincolnshire Poacher sometime. I should probably look to the deli counter more often. Usually, though, its the same as on the shelves if you look there too. Wooky Hole cheddar is usually around and nice. The best standard offering on the shelves is Davidstow - which isn't anything special but not bad.

I totally agree Dinosaw, taking cheese as just one example, the prices have fallen in a worrying way over the past couple of years. But then it's a marketing/consumer preference thing that kind of forces a race to the bottom. Obviously, we can go out and find excellent cheeses for a fair price all round but, if say one big producer is doing a better job by what would translate as 50p more then folks will look at it and not really know if the 50p more is going to an increased profit or a marginally better product. Consumer power is short circuited by brand/image/lost leader marketing. for the low and medium range products so its difficult to drive competition on anything other than price. What they dont do on the shelves is to offer the better cheeses in the same quantities - the price is similar for half as much. My head hurts! - no idea how to fix that one!

 

[dianefairhall]

I have to buy it online, Rick, except Mull of Kintyre which Tesco do stock. It's a bit like you describe your Dividstow, nothing special but not bad. I don't think I've tried Davidstow. Is that DEvon/Cornwall? I'll Google it.
We don't need imported meat/fish as we have proper butchers and fishmongers in Stornoway but I frequently order online from Donald Russell which is good quality and whose prices have come down dramatically this year.

https://www.donaldrussell.com

Cheese:

https://www.thecourtyarddairy.co.uk

https://www.yorkshiredalescheese.co.uk

 

[Icemaiden]

Cornwall produces some cracking cheddar that I sometimes see in Sainsbury's- "Coastal", I think it's called? Very nice.

At the other end of the spectrum has to be "Cathedral City" cheddar, with a rubbery texture and about as much flavour as a well used dog's chew toy. And since when did Telford have a cathedral?????

 

[dinosaw]

In like the "Cornish Cruncher" type cheddars. I tend to look for strength 6 or 7 when I'm buying a cheddar, or look for something that says it has been aged for more than 12 months. M&S do some good ones.

 

[LadyA]

I expect a lot of companies will have made arrangements already by now? And maybe local food producers will be able to flourish, which is a good thing, Brexit or not. I had an email from Zooplus this morning, assuring customers that they have been getting ready for this for quite a while, and "rearranging" things in light of Brexit. They are moving fulfillment of all orders from EU countries out of UK to Europe, and deliveries not destined for the UK will no longer travel through UK, but will (in the case of Ireland) go via direct ferries from Europe to Ireland, although they do say that this may add 1 or 2 days to delivery times.

 

[dinosaw]

The ROI government has been working hard to up their capacity to transport goods directly from the EU but it is nowhere near where it needs to be to avoid severe delays. Nobody is going to say that publicly though and promote panic buying. When you are going from a position of having 85% of goods transiting the UK and have only two regular ferry services from the EU, even a years worth of ramping up port capacity and chartering extra ferries isn't going to solve the problem of bottlenecks should a no deal occur and the French choose to play silly buggers.

I think most companies string their customers along about timescales as they want the business, Zooplus will probably be no exception, though I hope I'm wrong on that. It's happening with the Royal Mail at the moment, they have promised companies unrealistic timescales for delivery which they just can't provide given the huge volume of parcels they are seeing, the said companies are understandably hopping mad as their customers are chewing their arses off and cancelling when their presents aren't arriving in time.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if in the event of a no deal situation they announce a phased implementation of customs control lasting a few months to kick the problem down the road and give a bit more time to prepare.

 

[LadyA]

The ROI government has been working hard to up their capacity to transport goods directly from the EU but it is nowhere near where it needs to be to avoid severe delays. Nobody is going to say that publicly though and promote panic buying. When you are going from a position of having 85% of goods transiting the UK and have only two regular ferry services from the EU, even a years worth of ramping up port capacity and chartering extra ferries isn't going to solve the problem of bottlenecks should a no deal occur and the French choose to play silly buggers.

I think most companies string their customers along about timescales as they want the business, Zooplus will probably be no exception, though I hope I'm wrong on that. It's happening with the Royal Mail at the moment, they have promised companies unrealistic timescales for delivery which they just can't provide given the huge volume of parcels they are seeing, the said companies are understandably hopping mad as their customers are chewing their arses off and cancelling when their presents aren't arriving in time.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if in the event of a no deal situation they announce a phased implementation of customs control lasting a few months to kick the problem down the road and give a bit more time to prepare.

Oh, we always take official speak with a large grain of salt! I think for all of us, our best way forward is to buy locally produced stuff where possible. I mean, both UK and Ireland are traditionally agricultural countries. We may not be able to produce the variety we've all become so used to, and we may not be able to do it as cheaply, but in the long run, it would be so much better for our health and our economies if we got away from this idea that we have to have what we want, whatever the season, and we have to have it cheaply, and we have to have it with the least inconvenience to ourselves. When my dau was growing up we were extremely poor. Rather than buying cheap sandwich meat made from lord knows what, I used to buy a small bacon joint or sometimes a turkey breast joint, cook it and then use a small meat slicer (from Lidl, I think it was) to slice it for sandwiches. It worked out at I think about 1/10 of the cost of buying the same amount of sandwich meat. But, it was certainly a lot more work than opening a plastic packet with five small slices of ham in, for €2.99!

 

[dinosaw]

Absolutely agree. We cook up meat to use for sandwiches too, but normally with a mind to using having a meal and then using up the excess that way. My wife is the only person in her office that takes her own sandwiches with her, people act like she is some sort of freak, especially if she takes corned beef which some of the younger ones have never eaten.

 

[Marigold]

Absolutely. There is an organic farm shop here, run by a family I know well having taught their children, which is doing well this year. Unfortunately I haven’t been shopping there because all our food has come from Waitrose delivery this year as I haven’t been in any food shops, but being able to do so again locally is another tick on my bucket list post-vaccination.

OH is less hopeful. More Eeyore comments this morning - he seems to have moved mentally from ‘there is no evidence that the new strain will be resistant to vaccinations’ through ‘it is possible that the new strain may be resistant’ and on to ‘the new strain will probably be resistant and we’re all doomed ....”

 

[dinosaw]

To be fair, Vallance hardly filled the room with confidence with his "No evidence it is resistant to the vaccine" statement, he may as well have said "no evidence that it isn't resistant to the vaccine". They know bugger all about this new strain and should have kept their traps shut until they do.

 

[bigyetiman]

We were brought up roast on Sunday, cold meat on Monday, shepherds pie Tuesday. Any left was sandwiches. I am the only person who takes food into work. Everyone else goes into the shopping centre for food. Lockdowns have been nightmare for them, especially having instant coffee instead of Costa

 

[rick]

In the supermarket, a couple of days ago and inspired by talk of cheddar, I bought a Wooky Hole whole cheese. Just a small one but still way more than I would usually buy. Unwrapping the cheese cloth is like doing battle with some wild alive thing! Its mature cheddar, and very nice, but creamier than usual. £10 but, considering the amount of cheese involved, pretty good value.

 

[dinosaw]

Never been able to say Wookey Hole with a straight face since Star Wars came out.

 

[rick]

Lol
I'm not going to be able to forget that!

 

[dianefairhall]

We were brought up roast on Sunday, cold meat on Monday, shepherds pie Tuesday. Any left was sandwiches. I am the only person who takes food into work. Everyone else goes into the shopping centre for food. Lockdowns have been nightmare for them, especially having instant coffee instead of Costa

My Mum was a lousy cook, not really a cook at all although her mother was very good. Luckily Granny taught me to cook. My Mum 'cooked' cremated beef on Sunday, so tough you couldn't get your fork in, followed on Monday by "stew" which was a curious red colour and so disgusting I still won't eat stew 65 years later. My Dad took over the Sunday cooking - he was good, too, but my Mum still gave me beans on toast for my tea every day. Something else I can't eat now.

 

[Margaid]

We were brought up roast on Sunday, cold meat on Monday, shepherds pie Tuesday. Any left was sandwiches. I am the only person who takes food into work. Everyone else goes into the shopping centre for food. Lockdowns have been nightmare for them, especially having instant coffee instead of Costa

So was I, although sometimes it was curry not Shepherds pie. Never had chicken though, it was far too expensive!