Usually I shop for groceries online once a week and get all the heavy or bulky basic goods delivered to our door. All sorts of dairy goods, canned beans and tomatoes, frozen vegetables, pasta, rice and flour, etc. Then I top up with fresh fruit and vegetables at the local supermarket, and with any special ingredients for the day’s dinner that I don’t keep at home. Or Ingrid does the top-up shopping when she cooks.

I sat down to order food yesterday night and discovered that the next available delivery date from MatHem was five days from now – instead of tomorrow, like usual. Time for a new plan, I guess…

So we drove to a larger supermarket today and did our weekly grocery shopping ourselves. For the first time in weeks, if not months.

The mood in the supermarket was calm (no fights like in Australia!) but it looked like people were preparing for a major catastrophe. Shelves and freezer boxes were gaping empty and staff were everywhere, rushing to restock.

It was interesting to see what people stockpile.

Toilet paper, of course, just like elsewhere in the world. There wasn’t a single bale to be had at Stora Coop in Bromma Blocks. I wonder what the reasoning is. Is toilet paper truly the most important thing for your survival and well-being? Good thing we didn’t need any today.

Pasta and rice and noodles, I can understand. If you are going to stockpile food because you’re panicking, then it makes sense to buy these. They’re good bases for most meals, cheap, easy to store. Canned and frozen vegetables likewise, and frozen meat if you’re into that sort of thing.

Canned ready meals, like generic “canned meat soup”? Getting stranger. Who actually wants to eat that stuff daily, for real? What kind of scenario are you preparing for, when you think you’ll need to subsist on this?

Chocolate bars, though? What the heck?