Prepping for Brexit thread

Goldiegirl

Just to add to what Lizling,Well Preserved and Honey Bearsaid

The last time we were self sufficient in food was in the early part of the 19th Century, so that's two hundred years ago. When you bear in mind how much less agricultural and arable land there is now, and how much our population has grown, it illustrates how reliant we are on produce from overseas.

Honey_Bear

Just checked out the situation regarding eggs. We are 86% self-sufficient, so expect there to be shortages in a No Deal situation.

GreyQueen

When I look at labels on apples offered for sale at this time of year, I see the Southern Hemisphere; New Zealand, South Africa, Chile.


Not sure if these would be impacted by Brexit one way or the other? Also, British apples can be kept in cold-storage for several months a year. I once worked in a building which was a re-purposed cold store for apples and it was absolutely perishing, even in summer with no kind of powered refridgeration running, just the design of the builidng.


I do recall that when there was a health scare about imported contaminated eggs in recent years, it wasn't raw eggs for sale to households, but eggs used in the food industry for baking etc. I don't think fresh eggs get imported (mine are coming from my same county).

happydays89

We did a big shop today at Farmfoods ,they had some good offers.
200g jars of Nescafe were 2 for £5,we stocked up on cans of juice which I use on days out because cans of juice can cost £1 each.We also used the money off vouchers you get with their leaflets,we saved £10 by using one.
Went to Tesco and saw some 40 wash boxes of surf washing powder reduced to £1.25 a box.They also had their own brand non bio pods reduced to 60p for a box of 25.We are trying to bargain shop on items we will use .

Honey_Bear

This is the source of the egg figures I've quoted. We are, as above, only 86% self-sufficient in eggs, although I take Grey Queen's point that there is still home produced availability even at this time of year. (Hens don't lay as prolifically with reduced numbers of hours of daylight.)

The point is, it doesn't matter if we only eat UK produced eggs or not. If there's a shortage the price goes up and whoever is willing to pay the most gets the eggs. I'm not sure if that's the supermarkets, or wholesale sector.

The other knock on effect is that if it's the food manufacturing industry that goes short, that means job lay-offs in the food factories and then where that food is sold, be it the supermarkets, restaurants and cafes, hospitals, schools and the like. No raw ingredients, no food manufcturing production; reduced quantities of raw ingredients, reduced manufactured food production.

Anyone who knows about the food industry can interogate the figures on the website, I'm just looking at the top set of figures for 2017. Since then our population has gone up, not down, so demand will be greater but assuming our egg consumption has remained stable, that's 1,810 million eggs we'll be short by, so taken monthly, 150,850,000 short in April. That's a lot of eggs.

12,570,833 dozen, in fact.

Goldiegirl

GreyQueen wrote: »

When I look at labels on apples offered for sale at this time of year, I see the Southern Hemisphere; New Zealand, South Africa, Chile.


Not sure if these would be impacted by Brexit one way or the other? Also, British apples can be kept in cold-storage for several months a year. I once worked in a building which was a re-purposed cold store for apples and it was absolutely perishing, even in summer with no kind of powered refridgeration running, just the design of the builidng.

).

South Africa and Chile have free trade agreements with the EU, so the South African and Chilean apples are coming into the Uk under this deal. In an event of a no deal Brexit, this arrangement will end. Therefore we'd have to import the apples under WTO rules, and the tariffs may make them more expensive.

of course, if there's delays at ports, any apples might end up past their sell buy dates before they get near a supermarket shelf.

Have we produced more apples this year to stock pile them at cold storage facilities - or for all we know, the cold storage facilities might be being used to store other things, like the medicine stockpile.

One's way or another, I think we should be preparing for not much in the way of fresh food to be available, if it comes to a no deal Brexit.

silver-oldie

I live in an area which still has several commercial fruit orchards. Last year, after all the 'perfect' apples and pears were picked for the supermarkets and a charity was allowed to pick the rest of the fruit, to give to food banks, feed the homeless etc. They picked 2 tonnes of fruit which would have otherwise been wasted.

Maybe we grow more than we realise.

GreyQueen

Also, the issue about eggs is that raising chickens isn't as time-consuming as raising cattle, you're typically looking at 22-28 (breed and time of year dependant) weeks from hatching the chick to them laying their own eggs. Although the first eggs will typically be a bit undersized, of course.

Say we do go into Brexit with a deficiency of eggs. This is a capitalist country. Folk will seize the opportunity to fill the gap, everyone from backyard chicken keepers to major suppliers ramping up their production. I'd be very surprised if the latter weren't on the case already.

More local supply as opposed to imported supply is surely a good thing? Far fewer food miles meaning much less air pollution which will save lives and save health, less congestion on the roads, less wear and tear on the roads, greater control over welfare standards, more work for people in the UK, improvements on balance of payments.


It is only the petroleum age which has made the mass international transport of basic foodstuffs (as opposed to luxury foodstuffs for the elites) an affordable vice, after all. And yes, the Romans did used to ship grain from Egypt for several months of the year to pay off the poor of Rome with the bread dole, but they were looting large parts of the ancient world to generate the wealth to do so, and it ended badly.


ETA; just checked, and my eggs are coming off a farm 25 miles away.

Lizling

More local supply would be lovely as long as it doesn't mean more intensive farming or ending up importing more from the distant US and less from our French neighbours.

Greater control over welfare standards would be lovely too, but the EU's welfare standards are a lot higher than other countries we're likely to end up trading with more, after the initial chaos dies down and new trade agreements are drawn up.


I've got some egg substitutes in the cupboard in the form of apple sauce and flax seeds (and bean/chickpea water in the tins of beans.) Admittedly they're not going to go great with baked beans, mushrooms and fried bread in the morning, but they're meant to work fine in baking. I might try out the apple sauce in a cake this evening, for 'research'.

cod3

I have decided to sacrifice this month's mortgage overpayment funds in favour of Brexit prepping. I think it is necessary for my household, but if I am wrong, we wont have to go shopping for a while so no harm done. I don't think it is alarmist or irresponsible to stockpile in February when the shops are well stocked. If it all goes t*ts up at the end of March, there will be less people in the supermarket queue.

Short term goal: Yesterday I took delivery of a small chest freezer for frozen berries and vegetables. I'm buying extra ambient foods - tins of tomatoes, legumes, beans, coconut creams, nuts, seeds, pickles, flours, spices, tahini, peanut butter, silken tofu etc Also we have an old cat so food for him. The rest of the family is vegan so the additional freezer is easing my anxiety about the possibility of not being able to source fresh veg.

Medium term goal: We have a small house with a large garden, greenhouse, fruit trees and bushes, raised beds. I have ordered more fruit bushes on this MSE deal (ends today) to up fruit production https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/thompson-and-morgan/?&_ga=2.176129505.2120511380.1549102319-2120892817.1547669673#51133

Long term goal: When/if my employer goes bust due to the Brexit omnishambles, I will have a freezer for yellow sticker food and a productive garden to help me in poverty.