‘Be Ready’ campaign lifts bottled-water sales 67% without panic buying
Sales of hand sanitiser rose 83%, bottled water 67% and tinned and jarred food 37% in the ten days after the government’s “Be Ready” campaign on 22 October asked households to keep three days’ food and water, Worldpanel by Numerator data show; an extra 400,000 people a day bought tinned meat, though the typical purchase stayed at 500g. “This wasn’t panic buying,” said the firm’s Fraser McKevitt — “very much in line with what the government wanted”.
The campaign, launched as the Iran war pushed energy and cyber risks up the agenda, asked for wet wipes, a torch and cash alongside food and water; Andy Burnham spoke of having “those supplies in the house to get you through those moments”. Spending on tinned and jarred goods rose from £58.2m to £79.5m, bottled water from £13.6m to £22.8m and sanitiser from £497,000 to £908,000. Barclays found 27% of people were stockpiling or considering it, rising to 53% of over-55s against 31% of 18-to-34s. The limit on preparedness is money: 29% of people in the UK say they could not afford to keep a few days’ food in reserve, and grocery inflation edged up to 2.6% in the four weeks to 1 November. The same data show Lidl overtaking Morrisons for the first time, at 8.6% against 8.3% of the market. The figures matter beyond the shopping basket: a quiet, broad uptake with no shortages is what resilience planners hoped for after France’s supermarket fridge sabotage and this week’s bomb hoaxes showed how civilian systems are now targets. Watch whether the next four-week data show the habit sticking once the headlines fade.