I don't get how food consumption can increase in a pandemic. Should be constant in or outside a pandemic situation. Possibly somewhere crops are getting rotten because of newly imposed export restrictions, or for some other things.
All of this - and things like toilet paper - shifts to consumer goods instead of bulk goods, which takes different equipment and processing in factories, often at different times. A portion of school lunches in the US are the result of government subsidy foods: Cheeses, potatoes, and so on are very low cost to public schools.
In short: Consumer foodstuff demand has increased.
Additionally, more folks are spending a bit of time with food, changing the demands. Plus, home and slightly depressed/anxious with newly found free time means you have more time to eat - and many have taken up eating more.
And then you do have crops that couldn't be picked, disruption in shipping (food travels far), and disruptions in factories that complicates things.
Actually, what we had was a sudden reduction in the amount of flour being used by bakeries, and an increase in the amount of flour being used at home. There wasn't a shortage of flour - there was a shortage of small bags to put it in for selling at a supermarket. The industry was all set up for selling a decent proportion of flour in really large bags.
Likewise, for simple goods like vegetables, dairy, and beer, some suppliers have suddenly had their customers disappear, because they normally sold to restaurants, pubs, and caterers, where other suppliers have not been able to keep up with demand, because they sold to supermarkets. The obvious solution is for the suppliers who previously sold to caterers to sell to supermarkets instead, but it takes a while for these contracts and logistics to be sorted out.
Interestingly (well kinda) the similar yeast shortage is still not back to normal. The shortage was partly related to packaging and the yeast at my grocer is still in the post COVID foil packaging and not in the packages it was before. (Luckily I had yeast in the freezer)
(Also - seriously, you have 1 pound bags of flour over there? Most bags here are 1.5kg (3.3 pounds), with some specialist flours in 1kg (2.2 pounds) bags. 1 pound seems a little small.)
Just the usual scaremongering.
I also shop at Tesco and the stocks haven't changed at all.
Still, why even have brexit if we're going to do our level best to pretend we're still in the EU as hard as we can. Is being subject to full export restrictions, hammering British businesses, while allowing many European goods to flow in un-checked really the brexit you signed up for?
Zero problems in any of the major supermarkets in my area in the South East. My food bills haven't increased notably either, if anything, looking at my bank statement right now, they seem lower over the past 4-5 months than the year before.
The only anecdotal thing I have noticed, is that there a few new brands on the shelves that weren't there previously, but that's probably just observational and confirmation bias, because I was looking for something, I saw it.
Are you in a really shitty area or something? I only saw what you described in the first week of lockdown one. Nothing has noticeably changed in my local Morrisons for the last few months.
Aldi, Lidl, M&S, Morrisons and the local greengrocer all seem the same as usual here.
depression spurs eating binges.
being inside what to do, oh lets make more advanced food. lets bake cakes with the kids instead of sending them out to play with friends. etc. etc.
so increased consumption in combination with other, probably more important, pandemic problems.
Supplier A only supplies to restaurants it's normally a safe bet, so that's all they do. No restaurants buying - holy shit - my entire crop is excess...
I'm not a farmer but this is what I've read.
There's also the fact a lot of panic buyers might buy too much, then end up throwing a bit away because of fear that when they need it - it won't be there, but then it just spoils at home, etc.
Also food banks are taking a lot of the food. More people actually have money for food (one thing the govt does do is make sure people don't starve (usually) maybe more if you have kids).
TLDR: You can't just move all restaurant food to consumer/grocery like it's a commodity in Factorio... it takes a lot to shift global supply chains and get new contracts on how deliverables are received, etc...
There are a lot of people comfort eating and generally grazing out of boredom. I'm sure I've been eating a little more than I should with the crappy foods. Plus, people are saving so they are probably buying more foods to stock up on and thus throwing it all away.