The difference between "less choice" and "shortages".

[Workingman]

For many people there isn't one; they all mean shortages and shortages mean panic buying and panic buying creates shortages.

There has been a Commons Select Committee looking into supply chain problems and the leaders of the Cold Chain Federation (CCF) and the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) have been giving evidence to whit:

"It's about reducing the amount of goods you're expected to put on the shelves, We are very good a piling high and selling it cheap at Christmas time, What we're having to do is strategically scale that back, in order to basically meet the promise that there will be the stuff you expect to see on the shelves, but not necessarily all the extras."

and...

"The UK shopper and consumer could have previously expected just about any product they want to be on the [supermarket] shelf or in the restaurant all the time.

The journalists have reinterpreted the two messages and, of course, have gone for the worst case scenario - shortages and empty shelves. They have been preparing us for weeks with tales of turkey, Xmas pud, fruit and veg "shortages" and with the latest news have gone for the jugular. Reading comments following the articles it appears that more than 9 out of 10 have jumped on the word "shortages" and are heading for the shelves.

Some people are their own worst enemies.

[cromwell]

If there is any way that the Daily Mail can misrepresent this, they will.

[Suff]

Written another way, it could be "We will only be putting what we know you need on the shelves rather than all the junk we hope you will buy".

[Workingman]

We can see it, but it is frightening how many of those commenting only see "shortages" and then go off on a rant about Covid, the EU, lorry drivers, the Cabinet, farmers, supermarket profiteering....

[TheOstrich]

Sounds to me like a convenient excuse to hike up prices.

[Workingman]

They need and excuse!?

[victor]

My view is that as long as supermarkets bring in the booze/ chocolates / tins of biscuits /Christmas trees etc then there ain't room left on the lorries for other stuff

[Suff]

In the UK (and the US), people buy the largest amount of crud for Chrismas. Mrs S worked in the schools here teaching English for a year not long after we did a temporary 2 year stint here.

At Christmas she asked what the kids got for their Christmas. Almost unanimously it was things that we would buy normally, like a bedside table.

With limited capability it was always going to be spun as some "disaster" of some type that we couldn't get mountains of stuff into the shops that we were never going to buy. Perhaps this year, we won't see the stories of thousands of tons of "goods" being destroyed because it was simply not economical to return them and they were never going to be sold.