London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Jan 10, 2026

This is where all the food has gone in the coronavirus panic buying

You’ve seen the photos of empty shelves in supermarkets as panic-buyers strip pasta and loo roll to pile up in their trolleys.
Now, photos could show where some of the food has actually gone.

People have been sharing their stockpiles at home, with rows and rows of cleaning products and pre-prepped meals.

Cupboards are crammed to the brim with everything people could need to get them through two weeks of isolation – and a few months more besides.

An Australian chef posted on Reddit: ‘Fully prepared for the coronas (90 plus meals).

‘I mainly just prepared so I don’t have to cook after work.

‘I am a chef, so erratic hours, not too keen on cooking after big days. Also if I do get quarantined I am set for the duration.’

He said he had removed a stack of the food for the photo to demonstrate there were two layers.

Some were impressed by the preparations, saying: ‘I have freezer envy. That is a beautiful sight.’

But another said: ‘I find this amount of meals way unnecessary, especially for coronavirus.

‘Besides, I am from northern Italy, and this kind of hoarding is exactly the reason why I went to the supermarket yesterday only to find the vegetable section completely empty.

‘I know you probably have bigger supermarkets in the US, but still…can you guarantee that nothing will go to waste?’

Meanwhile, others boasted about the hoards of food and cleaning supplies on Facebook.

One woman said she had pureed enough tomatoes to last for a year, according to MailOnline.

‘The tomatoes were just skinned in hot water, pureed in a food processor, and then cooked down for a while to remove the air from pureeing them,’ she wrote.

‘Then, they were put in jars and processed using the Fowlers Vacola method to vacuum seal them. I’ll use them for sauce and casserole bases during the year now.’

Another said she had been stockpiling long before coronavirus appeared, saying she had been buying discounted items in bulk for around five years after a period when she ‘couldn’t afford to feed the family’.

She added: ‘I wouldn’t stockpile perishables unless you are positive you will use them.’

Tesco’s chairman has insisted that people do not need to panic buy as the supermarket will be able to keep stocks up.

John Allan, was reacting after images on social media showed empty shelves across the UK supermarket sector.

He said that the panic buying has not threatened their supply chain and they were confident they could overcome the short-term shortages.

He said: ‘There’s plenty of product in the supply chain, there’s plenty of food at Tesco and other supermarkets, and I don’t think anybody needs to panic buy. We, and I’m sure our competitors, are re-filling our supply chains as rapidly as ever we can.’

Allan said it was unlikely Tesco, which has a 27.2 per cent UK grocery market share, would experience anything more than ‘very short term, temporary’ shortages of certain products.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Russia Deploys Hypersonic Missile in Strike on Ukraine
OpenAI and SoftBank Commit One Billion Dollars to Energy and Data Centre Supplier
UK Prime Minister Starmer Reaffirms Support for Danish Sovereignty Over Greenland Amid U.S. Pressure
UK Support Bolsters U.S. Seizure of Russian-Flagged Tanker Marinera in Atlantic Strike on Sanctions Evasion
The Claim That Maduro’s Capture and Trial Violate International Law Is Either Legally Illiterate—or Deliberately Deceptive
UK Data Watchdog Probes Elon Musk’s X Over AI-Generated Grok Images Amid Surge in Non-Consensual Outputs
Prince Harry to Return to UK for Court Hearing Without Plans to Meet King Charles III
UK Confirms Support for US Seizure of Russian-Flagged Oil Tanker in North Atlantic
Béla Tarr, Visionary Hungarian Filmmaker, Dies at Seventy After Long Illness
UK and France Pledge Military Hubs Across Ukraine in Post-Ceasefire Security Plan
Prince Harry Poised to Regain UK Security Cover, Clearing Way for Family Visits
UK Junk Food Advertising Ban Faces Major Loophole Allowing Brand-Only Promotions
Maduro’s Arrest Without The Hague Tests International Law—and Trump’s Willingness to Break It
German Intelligence Secretly Intercepted Obama’s Air Force One Communications
The U.S. State Department’s account in Persian: “President Trump is a man of action. If you didn’t know it until now, now you do—do not play games with President Trump.”
Fake Mainstream Media Double Standard: Elon Musk Versus Mamdani
HSBC Leads 2026 Mortgage Rate Cuts as UK Lending Costs Ease
US Joint Chiefs Chairman Outlines How Operation Absolute Resolve Was Carried Out in Venezuela
Starmer Welcomes End of Maduro Era While Stressing International Law and UK Non-Involvement
Korean Beauty Turns Viral Skincare Into a Global Export Engine
UK Confirms Non-Involvement in U.S. Military Action Against Venezuela
UK Terror Watchdog Calls for Australian-Style Social Media Ban to Protect Teenagers
Iranian Protests Intensify as Another Revolutionary Guard Member Is Killed and Khamenei Blames the West
Delta Force Identified as Unit Behind U.S. Operation That Captured Venezuela’s President
Europe’s Luxury Sanctions Punish Russian Consumers While a Sanctions-Circumvention Industry Thrives
Berkshire’s Buffett-to-Abel Transition Tests Whether a One-Man Trust Model Can Survive as a System
Fraud in European Central Bank: Lagarde’s Hidden Pay Premium Exposes a Transparency Crisis at the European Central Bank
Trump Announces U.S. Large-Scale Strike on Venezuela, Declares President Maduro and Wife Captured
Tesla Loses EV Crown to China’s BYD After Annual Deliveries Decline in 2025
UK Manufacturing Growth Reaches 15-Month Peak as Output and Orders Improve in December
Beijing Threatened to Scrap UK–China Trade Talks After British Minister’s Taiwan Visit
Newly Released Files Reveal Tony Blair Pressured Officials Over Iraq Death Case Involving UK Soldiers
Top Stocks and Themes to Watch in 2026 as Markets Enter New Year with Fresh Momentum
No UK Curfew Ordered as Deepfake TikTok Falsely Attributes Decree to Prime Minister Starmer
Europe’s Largest Defence Groups Set to Return Nearly Five Billion Dollars to Shareholders in Twenty Twenty-Five
Abu Dhabi ‘Capital of Capital’: How Abu Dhabi Rose as a Sovereign Wealth Power
Diamonds Are Powering a New Quantum Revolution
Trump Threatens Strikes Against Iran if Nuclear Programme Is Restarted
Apple Escalates Legal Fight by Appealing £1.5 Billion UK Ruling Over App Store Fees
UK Debt Levels Sit Mid-Range Among Advanced Economies Despite Rising Pressures
UK Plans Royal Diplomacy with King Charles and Prince William to Reinvigorate Trade Talks with US
King Charles and Prince William Poised for Separate 2026 US Visits to Reinforce UK-US Trade and Diplomatic Ties
Apple Moves to Appeal UK Ruling Ordering £1.5 Billion in Customer Overcharge Damages
King Charles’s 2025 Christmas Message Tops UK Television Ratings on Christmas Day
The Battle Over the Internet Explodes: The United States Bars European Officials and Ignites a Diplomatic Crisis
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Join Royal Family at Sandringham Christmas Service
Fine Wine Investors Find Little Cheer in Third Year of Falls
UK Mortgage Rates Edge Lower as Bank of England Base Rate Cut Filters Through Lending Market
U.S. Supermarket Gives Customers Free Groceries for Christmas After Computer Glitch
Air India ‘Finds’ a Plane That Vanished 13 Years Ago
×