UK - Resources for help getting food during quarantine and other supermarket related problems

OH managed to pick up a random Tesco slot! It should come on Thursday.

Thought I'd report back on my efforts with Waitrose in case anyone is interested.

I'd made my shop, and every time I looked to see if a random slot had come up all I had to do was refresh the page. Nothing ever did come up, so suggest it isn't worth bothering.

Come midnight when I tried to do a refresh it shut me out and made me sign on again. Took me 4 minutes (since I had to look up my PW) by which time all slots had gone. So I'm going to forget Waitrose for now, and hope OH can continue to get a once a week slot from Tesco.

 

Neither of them have ever helped me with phone calls, they don’t care about it. Both of them offer exactly the same type of help; help with shopping/prescriptions but no support I’m now in week 4 or 5 of complete solitary confinement and really struggling mentally. Not once has my mam asked if I’m okay or managing. You guys on this forum alone have carried me through this and kept me sane.

That phone call absolutely killed me this morning and finished me off for the rest of the day. I did my meditation class live youtube stream this morning, it finished at around 12pm and I’ve been asleep all day, only waking to vaguely take part in the second meditation stream at 7.15pm

Covid ‘support’ did that to me, and thanks to them it’s unlikely I will eat today.

On a positive note: Gourmade food arrived frozen this time, I only woke up long enough to accept the delivery at 1pm and was straight back to sleep again.

 

I’m so pleased you managed to get a Tesco slot

re: Waitrose, I don’t think I could cope with doing a shop not knowing if there’d be a slot available at the end of your efforts that must be awful doing that for nothing

 

The local CAB are almost non existent now. I found this out in Jan/Feb when I tried to get help with benefit renewal. Plus they only have phone as an option

Local advocacy i’m not sure, I’ll check when I’m not brain dead.

This is all my own fault. If I hadn’t contacted my MP to try to help others who probably weren’t receiving food parcels too, I would have just been forgotten about

I almost felt sorry for the woman on the phone this morning, she sounded really lovely; but had literally no comprehension or ability to understand that I couldn’t talk on the phone.

it so annoying when you’re so seriously ill that you have to lie to convince people you’re ‘okay’ just to stop them from harming you further.

 

I have just received an email from ASDA.

I now seem to be on their priority list, I seem to remember I filled in a survey asking how likely I was to recommend ASDA, and generally moaned a bit, both about the fact that they had deleted my account (whilst still using it to send me surveys) and that I was on the government list - and that I would not recommend ASDA to anyone if this was how they treated vulnerable customers who'd had an account since my local store started doing deliveries.

Today, out of the blue, I have the option of free delivery with no minimum order value (or so it seems - the small order charge is £0.00) - the first available date would seem to be the 7th of May (for my local store, as of 10 minutes ago - it's probably at some point in 2132 now)

Wonder if they have any flour lol

ETA - I have just had a phone call, totally unsolicited, informing me that as I was categorized as 'shielded' I was entitled to food parcels, they'd noticed I hadn't been receiving these, and did I want any.

I said no thank you, please don't call again.

Apparently they got my number from' the NHS'.

ETAA - first order placed, with a recurring slot ever 2 weeks - if they don't completely muck everything up (it's ASDA, they will do).

Will just have to see how it goes.

I suspect I may have made a mistake turning down free, paid for for by the government' food earlier - but is 3 days worth of food whenever they can be bothered, really worth the agro of phone calls, and hanging around on standby to see what, if anything, turns up.

Maybe if I had absolutely no food, but otherwise...

 

I got my delivery from local fish van today, really pleased with the quality even if more expensive than supermarket, and far more veggies than I could carry normally in addition to the other items on a weekly shop.
'Small' veg box: 4 onions, 3 big carrots, 1 leek, 1 cabbage, 1 cauliflower, bag of spinach, half a swede.
I also ordered a dozen eggs, corned beef, (both from local suppliers) and smoked mackerel.

Nice to have fresh food as have been relying a lot on lentils and other pulses, from an online wholefood supplier when the shops had been cleared out during the panic buying.
Just need to find enough energy to use the veggies now.

 

Tesco are charging £2 for their priority slots. Sainsburys seem to charge a variable amount depending on which slot you choose. Using Tesco for non-priority delivery has now become very expensive, most of their available fixed time slots were £6-7 when I last looked (that was for 4 weeks' time).

 

Sainsburys have always been variable, unless you have a delivery pass, in which case slots are free for the time period the pass covers (i.e. mid week or everyday).

They will not allow anyone to buy a delivery pass any more, not even existing delivery pass customers.

Last time I checked Tescos was last week and the odd slot that was available was late night at £1.50-£2 a slot - but similar to sainsburys most of the slots people would want are £5-£6 or more.

I am currently registered with Tesco's, have been for years, but it seems they haven't got the memo so I'm still non priority with them.

It seems Morrisons haven't got the memo either, and they are only allowing me to see until Saturday, with no slots available.

 

I had an active monthly 'anytime' delivery pass with Tesco for £8, but they have cancelled all their delivery passes for existing customers, even those now considered 'priority'. I can't use the late night deliveries due to not having outside lighting in my rural front garden (and no street lights in the village).

 

I was in Lidl yesterday, and I was able to buy a box of 10 large eggs and another box of 6 medium-sized eggs. Yippee!

 

Mine isn't cancelled, just not being charged, this it the email I got.

 

I'm not sure I'd be covered by that as I only paid for one month's subscription at a time (e.g. not a 3, 6 or 12 month plan, although it was previously automatically renewed.

 

I just sent Waitrose an email. There’s a new food I had from there about 1.5 months ago, my partner brought it round - No chicken vegan samosas. They use soya mince in them. And they’re not too spicy, but also so much flavour. The best samosas I’ve ever had from a supermarket! But since then I haven’t been able to get any, as he hasn’t been able to come round, and I have been craving them and thinking about them all this time! I was waiting to see if Waitrose will add me to their priority list - I only recently made an account with them and haven’t shopped there before so that’s probably why. But hopefully even so, they’ll add me to their priority list now if I email them? I really need those samosas!

Edit: These are the ones:
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-vegan-no-chicken-samosa/763774-712733-712734

 

Update on our Tesco delivery.

Given time between 5 and 6pm. Arrived around an hour early. When OH commented the chap told him there were piles still waiting to be delivered.

OH thinks the only thing missing that they couldn't substitute was leeks. Well, leeks is leeks I guess, and onions or shallots wouldn't be the same! So we're happy so far. Not sure if he's checked the whole order yet - will let you know if there's anything else missing when he does the full count of stuff.

 

Waitrose sent me back an email basically saying that only existing customers (from before coronavirus I presume) will be prioritised.

So no “no chicken” vegan samosas from Waitrose, for me!

 

I just got an email from Thomas Cookie Co and remembered how amazing his cookies were. They’re still baking and selling cookies, cookie cups and S’mores and delivering to your door.

https://www.thomascookieco.co.uk/shop?page=3

 

Ooo I’ve never heard of this company. For me it all boils down to the texture of the cookie. I like them so soft that it starts to fold over on itself if you hold it long enough