Status: 03/31/2022 04:03 am
In many supermarkets, several shelves are once again empty. Why is everyone buying cooking oil and pasta like crazy? And what would actually be a sensible emergency supply?
“It’s almost as bad again as in the first lockdown,” complains Beate Schwarz. She has a small grocery store in Mainz-Gonsenheim and is amazed at her customers: “I don’t understand the people,” she says, shaking her head, “they buy cooking oil and flour like crazy.”
For this week, Black will no longer receive any cooking oil from her wholesaler. That’s why she put a handwritten cardboard sign on the empty shelf: “No, there’s no more oil!”
Reduced supply of edible oils and flour
In fact, the supply of edible oils in supermarkets is currently “less than usual,” explains Christian Böttcher, spokesman for the Federal Association of German Food Traders (BVLH). This applies in particular to sunflower oil. This is a direct consequence of the Russia-Ukraine war, because Ukraine is one of the world’s most important exporters of sunflower oil.
But the range of other foods in the supermarkets could also be a little thinner than usual, explains Böttcher, such as flour or pasta: “How badly individual products are affected and whether there are regional differences depends primarily on the situation along the supply chain from and from the individual business relationships between producers, processors and traders.”
No nationwide undersupply in Germany
However, the association makes it clear that a nationwide shortage of “basic food or everyday necessities” is not to be expected in Germany. Rather, the partial scarcity has one reason above all: “The lower availability of goods for some staple foods is also driven by excessive stocking behavior by some customers.”
Appeal to customers: Only normal household quantities
The Food Trade Association (BVLH) is therefore appealing to customers to only buy flour, oil, toilet paper or pasta in normal household quantities.
The production quantities and delivery logistics of the entire food chain are geared towards this magnitude.
“Simulation of ability to act”
Armin Nassehi, Professor of Sociology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, explains why people react to crises by buying hamsters: “Exceptional situations overwhelm us, scare us. We try to control the situation. And with the ‘hamster purchases’ we simulate ability to act.”
In addition, people tend to imitate, explains the sociologist. “And if everyone suddenly buys cooking oil, then I think I have to do that too.” In fact, this collective behavior could then lead to an artificial shortage of certain goods. And this effect keeps getting stronger.
“What toilet paper was at the beginning of the corona pandemic is cooking oil or flour in the current crisis,” observes Nassehi. These hamster purchases are not rational: “Because we are far from being in a really exceptional situation. And if it were to happen, it would certainly make more sense to stock other things than cooking oil, of all things.”
create water supplies
A guide from the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance describes what a useful emergency supply looks like. It says: “A person can go three weeks without food, but only four days without liquid.” The experts therefore advise having 14 liters of liquid in stock for each person in the household, as well as enough food for ten days – and those that can be kept without refrigeration.
This included sufficient candles, flashlights and batteries in every pantry in case the power supply should fail. And: medication. Personal medicines prescribed by the doctor are important, but also medicines for pain, fever or diarrhea.
Iodine tablets: Pharmacists advise against them
Experts say it makes no sense to buy iodine tablets for fear of a nuclear attack. Ursula Sellerberg from the German Association of Pharmacists describes the demand for it as having increased significantly nationwide.
The chairman of the Drug Commission of German Pharmacists, Martin Schulz, urgently advises against taking it: “Self-medication with iodine tablets harbors considerable health risks, but is currently of no use.”
The authorities responsible for civil protection had sufficiently high-dose potassium iodine tablets in stock to hand them out to the population if necessary.
regular customers first
In her small grocery store in Mainz-Gonsenheim, owner Schwarz wants to continue to provide her regular customers with everything they need. That’s why she keeps putting small amounts of flour or pasta aside, for example for the elderly lady who shops at her every day.
“I’m just annoyed by people who come out of the discount store around the corner because the oil is out there and then take the last bottles of sunflower oil with them.” She doesn’t understand these hamster buyers, says Schwarz – and sends them away again.