So my country has gone from madness to political madness and now people are seriously talking about the need to stockpile food in the event we bomb out of the EU onto WTO only rules. The UK produces just 60% of its own food. It is curiously unprepared for obligatory self-sufficiency, or even the kind of delays that a sudden change in customs might require for a just-in-time supply chain for supermarkets.
Living in relatively wealthy London will either be a decisive advantage or disadvantage. We have a lot of people living in close proximity to each other, which means more people fighting over the final few tomatoes in the shop, but it also means that the first place people will bring their goods to sell will be well-to-do London, where people can afford the higher prices and the stuff can be sold quickly and easily.
What sort of stockpile of food might we put together?
Sweden’s government delivered leaflets to 4.8m Swedish households, inviting them to consider how they could best cope in a situation of “major strain … in which society’s normal services are not working as they usually do”. The government had in mind all kinds of crises – natural disasters, terrorism, cyber attacks, all-out war – but the basic survival strategy for all of them was the food hoard.
The leaflet recommended that every home lay down a stock of non-perishables:
- specifically breadstuffs with a long shelf-life (the leaflet mentioned tortillas and crackers),
- dried lentils and beans,
- tinned hummus and sardines,
- ravioli,
- rice,
- instant mashed potato,
- energy bars
Switzerland has long had a similar sense of foreboding: legislation passed in the cold war still demands that every citizen has access to a nuclear shelter. But the list of recommended foods to be kept in the larder (or bunker) in case the worst happens is, as one would expect of Switzerland, more thorough. “Tick the items you need on the following list … and ensure that you always have them in stock” is the advice of the Swiss civil defence authorities. The list begins with
- nine litres of water per person (for an emergency lasting three or four days)
- pepper and salt,
- dry sausage,
- dried fruit and pulses,
- tinned meat and fish,
- hard cheese,
- pet food and
- condensed milk, chocolate, sugar, jam, honey and crispbread.
And I don’t seriously believe that the water supply would be threatened so I’ll not be building up a stock of water bottles, but I am considering some of the rest. I’m also considering stockpiling some alcohol to get us through the first few months of readjustment to this brave new world. My list looks something like this:
- wine, beer, cider
- breadstuffs with a long life, crackers, crispbread and pastry snacks
- lentils and beans, whether dried, tinned or packaged ready-to-eat
- dried pasta
- olive oil
- rice, especially carnaroli/arborio
- spices, ketchup, long life bottled/canned chilli sauce, garlic puree, ginger puree, tomato puree,
- dark chocolate
- dried pet food
And all of this fades into total insignificance compared to the risks to the medical supply chain into the UK.
No insulin is made in the UK: it can’t be by March. So a no deal Brexit threatens our insulin supply according to medicines regulator Sir Michael Rawlings.
What are the government going to do to prevent type-1 diabetics dying ?