The Guardian (September 28)
“Queues at the petrol pumps are never a good look for a government. They are especially bad in a pandemic, when so many people already have reason to feel anxious.” Panic buying comes natural after “gas price rises that have led to around 2m households losing their energy supplier” and “empty shelves in supermarkets…. There is a palpable sense that Britain is careering from one crisis to another.”
Tags: Anxious, Careening, Crisis, Empty shelves, Energy, Gas, Government, Households, Pandemic, Petrol, Prices, Queues, Rises, Supermarkets
Reuters (February 19)
“With no deal in sight as Britain’s March 29 exit date approaches, supermarkets are stockpiling, working on alternative supplies and testing new routes to cope with an expected logjam at the borders but say they face insurmountable barriers.” One of the biggest is that you simply can’t stockpile fresh produce and other perishables. “Intense competition and slim margins in the British supermarket sector have also made contingency planning more complicated.”
Tags: Barriers, Borders, Brexit, March 29, Produce, Stockpiling, Supermarkets, Supply routes, UK
New York Times (June 20)
“Venezuela is convulsing from hunger,” with over 50 food riots in just the last two weeks. The mobs storming supermarkets, restaurants and stores for anything edible are showing that even in the “country with the largest oil reserves in the world, it is possible for people to riot because there is not enough food.”
Tags: Convulsing, Food riots, Hunger, Mobs, Oil reserves, Restaurants, Stores, Supermarkets, Venezuela
LA Times (December 3)
From next week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules will require restaurant chains, movie theaters, supermarkets and other chain outlets to provide calorie counts on their menus. This marks a step forward. “Awareness will almost certainly grow as the calorie listings become ubiquitous. Even better, restaurants appear to respond to such labeling requirements by offering new, lower-calorie options. It took a long time for the era of supersizing to wreak havoc on America’s waistlines; it will take a while for us to educate ourselves to behave differently.”
Tags: Calorie counts, Chains, FDA, Menus, Movie theaters, Restaurants, Supermarkets, Supersizing