Like many Ozbargainers (I am sure), I often bulk buy supermarket bargains. This means that I am not in a good position to condemn those who have recently changed their buying patterns. However, I fear that we are viewing the end of the basic relationship between vendor and customer in the food supply chain. The power has transferred to the supplier. Supermarkets will no longer feel that they have to offer specials or any other incentive to get customers into stores.
To the hoarders, may I just offer some advice. Make your purchases last for twice as long as you have planned. Judging by the size of many of the folks I saw pushing loaded trolleys around, now is the perfect time to consume a little less food. And please don't waste what you have taken so much trouble to accumulate. Make sure that food only leaves your house in a stomach or a pipe.
I have often observed to anyone who is close enough to listen that our society is only a few square meals away from anarchy. Total disruption of the food supply chain could wipe out a majority of the developed world's population in a few months. Today's shelf clearing would become tomorrow's looting. But it will be OK - the hunters and gatherers and subsistence farmers (remember them - those poor brutes to whom our forebears brought civilisation) will live on to ensure that the human race continues.
when this all blows over there is going to be an enormous slump in sales