Painkillers, fish and pasta may be hard to come by at the moment - but don’t worry, there’s plenty of beer.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been tracking the availability of products on shop shelves, to give an indication of which items may be in shorter supply.
Shelf availability research for shops across the UK has been undertaken by Kantar Public.
Their collectors gather information on a range of items from up to three different stores across multiple locations. They record availability across four categories: “none”, “low”, “medium” or “high”.
In the most recent period (January 21 to 24), 268 shops were visited across 132 locations in the UK, and 5,616 observations were made.
Around a quarter of observations (24%) for the availability of paracetamol found there were none or low quantities on the shelves. For ibuprofen, that was 17%.
Beer was the most likely to be recorded as having high availability, in 78% of instances.
It is important to note these categories are subjective as they are recorded by individual collectors.
Other items observed as being in short supply were fresh fish (13% of observations were of no or low availability), fresh pork (12%), and sparkling water (10%).
The overall proportion of observations for all categories recorded as "high" was 54%.
This was up from 48% for the previous four-day period (January 7 to 10), although that period saw lower levels of high availability compared with the other periods monitored.
Observations for all items recorded as "none" or "low" was at 9%, broadly similar to previous periods.
However, producers are warning there could be more shortages of food and drink to come as a deal to support the CO2 industry comes to an end.
CO2 has a number of uses, such as to fizz soft drinks and some beer, keeping packaged food fresh, stunning livestock before slaughter, and aiding in surgical operations.
A shortage developed in September after production was paused at two fertiliser factories owned by CF Industries, which supply 60% of Britain’s CO2.
The Government stepped in to support the factories for three months. However, that deal ends this week, and there are concerns, with energy prices still high, that shortages will develop.
British Meat Processors Association chief executive Nick Allen told the PA news agency it has been assured that animal welfare will be prioritised, along with the NHS and the nuclear power industry.
Mr Allen said: “We’re not panicking that we’re heading into a problem immediately. But it is frustrating that after three months we’re running up to the line and no-one knows where we are.
“The Government is optimistic that the plant is not going to close in the short-term. They are less optimistic that in the longer term it will carry on.
“We’ve found more suppliers but nevertheless, if it closed we would only have about 70% of the CO2 we need for this country.”
