HIS COMMENTS follow reports in the Evening Standard that tinned goods and bottled water sold out at retailers including Ocado after the government advised the public to stockpile three days’ worth of supplies in case of cyber attacks and extreme weather.

“If a single government announcement can sell out key lines in a matter of days, we should be asking what happens when it’s more than a glitch,” said TMX‘s Fitz-Walter. “This week was a warning, and the whole supply chain should treat it as one.”

He said UK grocers run some of the most sophisticated replenishment systems of any industry, factoring in everything from sales trends to the weather. “But no system can predict a government telling the country to stockpile. And this demand wasn’t spread across the shop. It was concentrated on a handful of lines, all at the same time.”

“Nobody is going to hold excess pallets of baked beans just in case,” said Fitz-Walter. Instead, he argued businesses should simulate demand shocks in advance, identifying which products people will reach for and in what volumes so they have a plan ready to trigger.

“It won’t be perfect, but it means you mobilise straight away and get back to a steady state quickly,” he said.