Why stockpiling is not the crazy, selfish behaviour that it seems

I will admit, I was one of the people railing against "hoarders" based on some of the imagery I was seeing (and in-person examples - like one person loading their cart with dozens of bottles of ketchup). I'm also happy to admit that I was wrong if it really is a matter of lots of people just buying a little more than they used to and that's what's causing some of the in-store shortages. Based on the article that seems to be the case, so I'll say it now: I was wrong.

> there is a good chance that if the small percentage of crazy buyers does not increase and the majority of shoppers who have been stocking up, go back towards a replenishment of their higher stocks, we should see the problem gradually subside in the coming days and weeks

I'm really hoping that's the case. I've been monitoring a few items online to see whether they're gradually coming back or not. We're pretty well stocked on some staples and other things, but the kid in me who grew up poor in a large family still has some anxiety about the whole food situation.

Its the power of many folks buying a bit more, when big shops have found a balance during stable times of how much they need to have in store for maximal profit (=minimal waste). Not much mystery there that it doesn't work now.

I also bought a bit more stuff. Why? Well we are 3 stuck at home 24/7 (well newborn doesn't really count, but wife needs good diet and baby seems to have some sort of cow protein alergy), so instead of eating lunch at work, we eat everything at home. Combine this with desire to visit shop as little as possible since its our only human contact indoor. I am really curious when things get back to normal, I guess in couple of weeks.

Just to clarify, I live in city with >1k confirmed infections (so probably 10-50k real ones), quite a few colleagues have it, working from home for second week.

I have been saying since the beginning that I thought hoarding was unlikely the issue since clearly there was a massive shift in where people were eating and no spare capacity in the trucks. The UK supermarkets spend 4 months preparing for Christmas and that is just a few days without supermarket access and once it's done they immediately switch that tiny extra capacity to Easter.

Its a supply chain issue with 30% of the calories eaten outside of the home now shifting into the home. It's structural and it thus requires government intervention. When you consider that 8 hours a day people are using company toilet paper and eating lunch from lunch take out places and all that now gets shifted through the supermarkets there is a big problem. When the report was the bread was out consistently it should have become clear this was just everyone working from home needing lunch when previously they would have been doing that at work from a sandwich shop. The hoarding narrative allowed the government to avoid fixing the actual problem.

Summary: People are not actually buying, huge, crazy amounts.

Rather that have somewhat increased the buying of what they normally buy, and added a few more things.

But in mass, all that small increase is clearing shelves, amking people thing it's hoarding behavior, when it is not.

There is a difference between stockpiling and panic hoarding. Stockpiling can involve, canning, preserving, dehydrating, bulk purchasing in times of plenty, and setting up gas generators and petro. Panic hoarding is going between one grocer and the next and buying the entire stock of an item, sometimes with the intent of price gouging your neighbors, or just out of a general sense of fear. One is orderly and planned, the other is a dickish move.