Corona Virus Treatment

I heard that the Supermarkets have said they are only selling a minimum number of variants / high throughput lines to make sure there is food on shelves. Makes sense to me as suppliers will have a proportion of people off in self isolation, and social-distancing will also mean that they cannot have as many people "packing" as normal. So better to produce a smaller range, in high volume, so that there is sufficient quantity to keep the shelves full.

We get a vegetable box each week. Used to be that we could choose "whatever we like", now it is just "a mixed vegetable box", no choice, for the same reason.

Consequential compromises of course ... like the range of milk carton sizes.

The extra lengths all companies, not just Supermarkets, are having to go to must be increasing their costs and whatever profit they might normally be able to make is going to be severely eroded, or become a loss. Fewer people in store at any one time, massive home deliveries (our supermarket is delivering 24/7) are hugely more expensive to pick-and-pack than a punter wandering around the store and doing their own "picking" - and often a self-checkout too. PPE, screens at the checkout, two people paid to stand outside all day making sure that shoppers are marshalled into the store, shelf-stackers slowed down by keeping distance ... all that is extra cost

We are very fortunate to have no shortage of work ... for now at least ... but all our people are working from home, nothing like as efficient as in the office, and plenty of them have small kids that they are also having to tend to. Employer is sympathetic to that and just asks "do you best" but profit? nope, not going to be any, particularly if, as is likely, some Clients go bust, or inevitably slow-pay-us. I reckon that will also be representative of other businesses that are fortunate enough to actually have work and that they are going to be in a similar boat.

I wonder if the issue that that would reduce availability for health workers is "real"? and the "false sense of security" aspect of "I'm wearing a mask so I won't bother to wash my hands frequently any more" Might be smoke and mirrors in the sense that maybe the UK doesn't have enough masks for widespread use? I see maybe 25% of supermarket shoppers wearing them, so they got them from somewhere.

Not sure how other countries have had sufficient masks that they handed them out in the street to "everyone" .. maybe they are the countries that produce the masks so have, in effect, said "we make them, all our people can use them and we won't export any". (All supposition on my part, maybe it is easy for us to divert existing factories to make masks?)

yes I heard that too, but I scratched my head because wouldn't that also be true of anything else that is packaged similarly? - biscuits, rice, nuts, ...

The increase in home baking I get, but would that really empty the shelves completely? And even Strong Bread Flour (given that there is Bread aplenty on the shelves ...) but maybe Home Baking uses that too? When I used to make bread by hand I thought it was jolly hard work!

Grammatical error there Woo, its plural:

Where have all the flours gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flours gone?
Long time ago

 

So, using my old ager bus pass carries a considerable degree of risk then...

 

Just got an email, plenty of flour here (not surprised at those prices).

Franchi/Seeds of Italy flour

But they're saying their seeds are in stock and will be dispatched within 4 days.

N.B. Their packets contain huge amounts of seeds.

 

I thought that was going to be "grow your own flour"

 

I tried that once, then discovered Rabbits can totally destroy a wheat crop, wonder how wheat farms control them?

 

I only got as far as thinking about it! I don;t think growing Wheat would be hard, but the whole part from Harvest to Flour seemed to be a nightmare.

 

I still haven't got the hang of these face masks

 

I'm sure you could build a windmill.

 

Wheat was develoded from grass

Growing wheat is easy, but getting the quality is another matter, you need a hard wheat variety and then the right weather and soil conditions, worth a go - good luck, 1kg of wheat will make 750grams of usable flour and watch out for ergot, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Most fresh bread will be make up of many variety's and quality's of wheat which is the hard part in getting the loaf you want, all in the bending of wheat

 

The flour shortage is a reality, possibly driven by masses of new people buying a bag or five to try their hand on baking. Makes sense, if you are stuck at home with kids you need distractions, and every channel is now pushing "easy baking with kids" recipes adorned with lovely photos. We all want to be that parent don't we?



I hereby reveal a secret. Buy foreign. Tesco online had zero normal flour, but browsing the "Foreign food" section revealed a Polish product that is... hold your breath... wheat flour.
It doesn't come up when searching home baking section as it's under the foreign food one. They also had chapati flour but that's a bit too foreign for me