Food shortages in Great Britain - statistics & facts
We have all seen the newspaper pictures of empty shelves in British supermarkets. But how severe is the problem of food shortages? During the Coronavirus pandemic, the Office for National Statistics established a regular survey that tracked British consumers' experiences with goods shortages. From the most recent releases we can see that, during the two weeks between September 22 and October 3, about 17 percent of survey respondents said they were unable to buy essential food items. These items were simply unavailable in some stores. This would mean that approximately 8.9 million consumers were unable to buy essential foods. In a follow-up survey between October 6 and October 17 the response of British consumers dropped only by one percent and 16 percent of consumers experienced shortages of essential food items.
