Sales of tinned meat, bottled water and other emergency staples have surged across Britain in the ten days since the government urged the public to prepare for a possible crisis, according to industry figures.
The push came after officials told households to be ready to rely on their own resources to get through events triggered by “hostile state actors or terrorists,” cyber attacks, or extreme weather. The guidance recommended keeping at least three days of food and water on hand.
Trade publication Meat Management reports that the number of shoppers buying tinned meat rose 43 per cent in the ten days after the government campaign began, equivalent to roughly 400,000 extra buyers of canned goods every day. Bottled water sales jumped 67 per cent over the same period.
Other categories saw similar spikes. Sales of food in jars rose 37 per cent, and hand sanitiser, a product that became a household staple during Covid lockdowns, climbed 83 per cent.
The buying rush appears to be feeding through into prices. Grocery price inflation rose to 2.6 per cent in October, up from 2.5 per cent the month before, reversing a downward trend seen earlier in the year.
A separate review of consumer habits by Barclays Bank, reported by The Guardian, found that a quarter of Britons were stockpiling or considering doing so, with purchases of batteries and toiletries also increasing.
Last month the government advised every household to stockpile nine litres of water per person, three days’ worth of long-life food, and other essentials including medication, pet food, nappies, a torch, a radio and cash.
Launching the preparedness campaign, Defence Minister Wes Streeting said terms like “hybrid warfare” and “grey zone threats” fail to convey to the public what he described as “state-sponsored terrorism.”
So in the face of those threats, which are not hypothetical but real, and not somewhere else but increasingly here, we have to step up and take seriously our national resilience as well as our national defence.
It’s really important that we ask households and businesses, are they prepared? Are they ready? Do they know how they would respond in the event of everyday challenges that might manifest themselves?
