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

Yes me too I love soft cookies, those super soft buttery ones. These Thomas cookie co are those ones. The first ingredient is butter! I also used to ask my mum to warm them in the oven for me so they are literally melting in the bowl. Got cravings for these now too. Argh

Oh I also used to like Millies cookies and then you warm them in the oven

 

Not sure if this has been posted but the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have set up a survey asking for experiences obtaining food during the pandemic: https://forms.office.com/Pages/Resp...kcnJ3-KJUOFFXNEhLSDlFTUZaQzU1TlNEWVkwUVhHUC4u

 

In the comments section of the survey I put this:

 

@lunarainbows, thank you for the cookie link. Have just ordered for my younger DD as she has twin boys just coming up to their 10th birthday. I thought with all the home schooling stuff, not to mention the exercise thing first thing in the morning with Joe(?), that she deserved a treat! I've warned her to open the parcel (she doesn't know what it is) in private! And hide them well! Or suspect the GrandTwins will be after them!

 

I've just listened to the daily Coronavirus briefing. I'm not sure who was speaking at the time, but the problem of vulnerable and disabled people being excluded from the 'severely clinically vulnerable' group and hence not being prioritised by supermarkets for online shopping, was briefly covered. What the government are doing to 'help' this group is to 'ensure' their LA refers them to the NHS volunteer service so they can have someone collect and deliver their shopping for them, there was no mention of helping supermarkets identify a wider group of disabled people for priority deliveries. I've highlighted the serious problem with this 'solution' in other posts, namely that these 'community volunteers' will not need to have even a basic criminal background check.

It's also extremely worrying that the volunteers involved in the 'check in and chat' phone service will not have any background checks beyond having their ID verified. Neither will they receive any training, not even in basic 'safeguarding', something that is absolutely essential for anyone working with vulnerable groups. Basically it seems that anyone can volunteer to do this role, even though it means being given the contact number and having an unrecorded conversation with extremely socially and/or emotionally vulnerable persons - who by definition are those without any support system.

What is even more worrying is that these issues will not even be mentioned to the vulnerable members of the public who are being referred to this service. When they were developing this scheme, I assumed they were going to do thorough criminal background checks and only allow suitably qualified and experienced volunteers to do the phone calls - I think most of the people asking for help from it will be assuming the same.

However, what the government seems to be doing is not just allowing, but directing, the most isolated and vulnerable people to become known to potential abusers. Obviously many, or even most, of the volunteers may be perfectly honest and have good intentions, a few may even have a suitable vocational or volunteering background with relevant training for the 'check in and chat'. I anticipate that the media will initially focus on the 'success stories' of the later type of volunteer. But it only takes one dishonest person, or even a well-meaning but unskilled honest volunteer, to cause long-lasting harm to someone referred for support. The potential for abuse of some of the most vulnerable members of society through this system beggars belief, I just can't see how any of the disability charities were involved in creating this monster, since they are well aware of how vulnerable many disabled people are to being abused both financially and emotionally. When I worked for Trading Standards we were well aware of the fact that scammers kept (and sold) lists of vulnerable people and that once an individual had fallen for one scam they were likely to become the target of multiple scammers.

More information on this scheme can be found on the following links:

https://volunteering.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/nhs-volunteer-responders

https://volunteering.royalvoluntary...lunteer-responders-faqs-v1-9-15-04-20-976.pdf

https://www.goodsamapp.org/assets/pdf/Getting_started_as_a_Community_Response_Volunteer.pdf

https://www.goodsamapp.org/assets/pdf/Getting_started_as_a_Check_in_and_Chat_volunteer.pdf

 

My MP is useless on all issues - she's one of those who won't speak out or take a position on any point of controversy. I don't currently have the energy to engage with the charity over this. They've built the system so are unlikely to change it - I've previously been involved with my Local Authority Social Care user group, the CCG service user group and was a patient representative on a NIHR HTA panel in the past. That took a lot out of me and nothing meaningful came of the time I spent. In fact, all of these organisations have become worse and patient/service user involvement is now purely a 'tick the box' add on.

If anyone wants to contact a media person then I give my permission for them to quote my post(s) or use my wording. I was thinking this is maybe a story for an investigative journalist. The Disability News Service may be interested in following this up or possibly Frances Ryan.

There is now a severe lack of 'user-led disability organisations' as they have had increasing problems obtaining funding over the recent years.

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...ghts-uk-as-user-led-funding-squeeze-tightens/

So this absence of involvement of disabled/vulnerable people in developing services and programmes aimed at 'helping' them is a major problem. This new NHS coronavirus volunteer programme really highlights the problem and a good investigative journalist should be able to make an insightful article out.

 

https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/products/organic-flour-box

10.15am doves farm organic flour box is in stock if anyones been trying to grab one.

Their gluten free food box is also available ATM.

Delivery is £5 and they say they use DPD. *(ETA - at 11.26am I received a DPD shipment email saying it will turn up tomorrow. The order acknowledgement email is timestamped 10.15am so quite a fast turnaround)

ETA

10.35am flour box is now out of stock - so 20 minute window it looks like
gluten free food box is still showing as in stock at 10.38am

Tomorrow morning I am going to try and grab a small sack of wholemeal from
https://www.fwpmatthews.co.uk/application/best-for-bread/?instock_products=in
who say they will allow ordering from 10am and say they have stock.

*not the worlds best flour but beggars can't be choosers ATM, and if I manage it that's 32 loaves worth which should keep me going for a while.

(flour is my main deficit as I haven't really been able to get it for the last 6 or so weeks)

 

Missed it again
Is there a certain time of the day where you noticed it gets released? (The doves organic one)
Is it always around 10ish? Or earlier?

 

I don't know.

I am hoping that a pattern becomes evident as the days go on.

On Thursday it was sold out by 9.20am (I don't know when it went in stock, only that it was out of stock when I went to bed just before 7am and when I got up at 9.15am it was out of stock (with a different banner))

On Friday they said no more orders that week, come back next week - so I did - I've been trying since 7.50am

This is the first time I have seen it in stock, so I wanted to see how long it stayed in stock - to which the answer is - not long.

I am also trying wrights (bread mixes and flour)
https://wrightsbaking.co.uk/
(they say they will be opening their shop at 9.30am), and the one linked to above (10am) who sell 1.5kg bags (min order of 5) and sacks (16kg and maybe 25kg).

I have no idea as to the delivery charge for each of the above, only that they state delivery is 7 to 10 days.

For a 16kg sack (too much for normal domestic usage but little bags are proving a pain to get) ebay suggests carriage is around £13 - which makes the whole things rather expensive if it wasn't for the fact that people are trying to sell one 1.5kg bag of flour for a tenner or more on ebay

 

Thanks. I’ve given the task of getting the doves farm organic box to my partner, as I usually get up too late. Hopefully he manages To get one sometime in the morning. I didn’t even know the company called Wrights existed until recently,’it looks great, I’m hoping to try to get some bread mixes.
I’ve been having pitta bread and vegetable soup for dinner pretty much every day now. Easy way to get my 5 a day.

 

The lady who rang me last week sounded very old. Possibly another reason why she didn’t acknowledge me when I said text and email only and not to contact me again etc.

That’s a good point about them being unrecorded. I’m pretty sure they’ll ring again this week, because they will not respect my wishes and leave me alone and stop causing me further harm. So I’ll try to get prepared and put the call on speakerphone and video or record the conversation so I have proof of me telling them I am too ill to talk on the phone and it is not my method of communication. I’ll also get the callers full name for the sake of the recording.

It is absolutely diabolical that they are contacting the most vulnerable of society and not taking into account their type of communication needs.

I wouldn’t mind but I’m not even getting any free food for my torture and they are stopping me from eating my own food because they leave me comatose for the rest of the day

 

I've seen a few 16kg sacks of flour being offered on Amazon, but I didn't check the delivery prices as I'd never get through that much. I rarely eat bread, just use flour in pastry, shortbread or cakes, which I'm only occasionally well enough to bake.

 

16kg is 32 loaves.

I can do 2-4 loaves a week of fresh bread, or a loaf can last 2 weeks - depends on the mood I'm in, and how good the flour is, and whether or not I can actually produce something worth eating from it.

Stored correctly flour will easily keep that long.

But a 16kg sack is annoying.

Too heavy, too difficult to get flour out of, impossible to pour some of the contents into a 'normal' sized flour container (no one has enough hands), and, and this is the deal breaker, always in the way, wherever it's put it'll need moving several times a day.

Not to mention a trip hazard.

It's just an annoying amount of flour in very irritating packaging.

But should one crop up, of half decent flour, then I'll grab it, it's got to be better than hoping a supermarket, which says it has flour, will actually deliver some - and constantly being 'disappointed'.

 

You can buy 15kg dry food containers on Amazon. Some are aimed at storing rice or flour, but only seem to come from abroad:



Or you could use a pet food storage container. I use the Curver ones for storing my dry cat food (available from Zooplus), which I buy in bulk. I also have some scoops to use with them:

 

Wrights
https://wrightsbaking.co.uk/
opened at 9.26am (stated opening time 9.30am)

I have ordered 2 bread mix boxes (fixed item, 5 mixed grain, 10 white, £13.50 per box - each mix making one loaf). Not ideal, I would have prefered all mixed grain.

Stock appears 'limited' in range of other items, although they do offer some small sacks (12-16kg) of granary and scofa type mixes.

Carriage is £9 (DHL I think)

I will keep checking to see when they shut down for the day but I have another site to check from 9.55am (to see if I can pick up some wholemeal, as white bread doesn't agree with me for long)

ETA- they stayed open for 30-35 minutes.

The other site, Mathews,
https://www.fwpmatthews.co.uk/
opened at 10am, as stated in their banner, min delivery is £8, bags of various flours at £11-15 for 5 x 1.5kg bags (min order). It was a very slow site that kept flicking between open and closed. It has now closed, presumably at 10.15 as their banner states.

I got my wholemeal, and some granary type flour.

That's me sorted for flour for quite a while (my dove farm box is turning up in 2-3 hours to tide me over for the 1-2 weeks until this lot turns up).

ETA - the mill I would have prefered is Shipton Mill, but they have some weird queuing system that I can't grasp so I have been unable to use them, or even find out when they are actually open.

ETAA - Update

My Wrights order of bread mixes turned up this morning. Their FAQs state they do not give out tracking numbers, or answer emails, but if asked politely, explaining why a tracking number is needed, then they might - they did for me.

They have now been open for over two and a half an hours, rather than the 30 minutes a few days ago, so it looks like things are improving. Just checking status as yeasted bread mixes are unlikely to store longer than 6 months, it would be pointless to order more right now.

Matthews use DPD for delivery, it's buried in their FAQs - so far other than an order confirmation I haven't heard a peep - but as DPD are likely to send me an email once they have received pickup instructions I'm not as worried about not having tracking info as I was with Wrights, who use DHL - I do not expect delivery for at least a week, maybe 2.

I am now reasonably happy with my flour situation, at normal usage rates I have a few months worth (bread, pizza bases, sauce, thickening and dumpling making, with enough stuff I can convert to self raising to make the odd all-bran cake) and once the Matthews order turns up that will rise another couple of months worth - and both places seem to be operating and in stock, at least largely so, for the bits I would want in future.

I figured out a use for the wholemeal plain flour I have had delivered over the weeks as substitutes, as well as the wholemeal self raising Doves Farm contributed to my 'what do I do with this' pile, - scofa bread, pretty sure I have baking soda somewhere.

My dried/UHT milk, instant meals, tinned stuff (meats, chopped toms, etc.), pulses/beans etc. situations are not so good, in several categories I was far too late to get more than a couple of tins/packets of something, and they've been unavailable since, but one thing at a time - at least I have lots of 'orrible instant potato to go with stuff I don't have lol

 

Various flours and other food items can be purchased here:

https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/

 

excellent! This is the company I usually use on amazon for my wheat gluten and oat fibre

 

Thanks @Simbindi just bought some plain flour, pasta flour and extra yeast. That was extremely hassle free and straight forward

 

I wrote the above post on 21st April. I went back to the same shop today and had an even more stupid experience.

The fruit and veg aisle is on the far right of the shop as people walk in. When I got there today the end of this aisle was blocked completely by a big sign telling people to follow the arrow signs indicating the one-way system, and by another fruit and veg cage of supplies for that particular aisle. I had gone to the shop specifically for a cabbage and some fruit so I was annoyed about this. I spoke to the man who was controlling the entry of people in the shop and asked him where I was supposed to go, and he pointed at the next aisle along. This meant that I was going against the one-way system.

When I reached the other end of this particular aisle I could see that there were more cages of fruit and veg supplies at the other end of the fruit and veg aisle, completely blocking entry. I spoke to a member of staff and asked why the aisle was blocked and was I allowed to buy any of the stuff in it, and I was told that yes I could buy it. Apparently I had to push these food cages aside to get a cabbage. When I commented about this being very unclear and making it impossible for people to follow the one-way system he told me that he had to do his work to re-stock the aisle (so the underlying message was "Tough!").

I realised that at least two staff members (out of a total of 3 or 4) had absolutely no understanding of social distancing rules, nor did they understand that they were making it impossible for people to follow the rules within the shop. It was absolutely bizarre!