Preparedness is not a Hobby but a Necessity

Published on 13 October 2026 at 14:34

This week -October 2026- Europe received an unexpected lesson in preparedness.

In the Netherlands, Albert Heijn — together with Etos and Gall & Gall — went offline after what its parent company Ahold Delhaize describes as a 'cybersecurity incident'. Websites and apps are down, online orders cannot be processed, and shelves in the stores are growing bare. In Belgium, sister chain Delhaize is facing limited e-commerce. And in France, hackers remotely forced the cooling systems of hundreds of supermarkets to defrost, so that Intermarché and Coopérative U had to throw away fresh and frozen food.

Three countries.

Three different systems.

One same lesson: our food supply is brilliantly efficient, but also vulnerable in its efficiency.

What can we do?

First: no panic, and no doom

Let us be very clear about what this is not.

There is no shortage of food. The fields are full, the factories are running, the food production system is not down.
There is no health scare. Nothing is wrong with the food itself.
What is down is distribution and logistics: the digital nervous system that tells supermarkets what to order, what to charge, and what to deliver.

This is a distribution-logistics problem. Nonetheless, it will reach your kitchen — because 'the shelves are still full somewhere' is of little comfort when your own supermarket's tills, apps, and deliveries are offline. Panic-buying then empties the shelves that logistics struggles to refill.

What 3 to 6–8 days of basics do for you

This is where preparedness shows its true face. It is not about bunkers or fear. It is about having the basics ready for 3 to 6–8 days, so that a hiccup in the system is, for your household, merely a footnote.

Having a modest preparedness cabinet:

makes life much easier — you simply cook from your own shelves and skip the queue;
takes away stress — you watch the news with interest instead of with a racing heart;
avoids overwhelming the supermarkets, which have a hard enough time with extra demand and logistic troubles.
Every family that stays home calmly leaves a full shelf for a family that truly needs it today.

That last point deserves emphasis: preparedness is not an individual act. One does it for the benefit of society. If everyone who can stock up calmly does stock up calmly, the system has breathing space to recover. The result is increased resilience — for you, for your neighbours, for the whole chain.

Look after the vulnerable

And please — look after those who are vulnerable: those whose supermarket is the most affected, and who cannot go the extra mile to another store.

Think of:

the elderly neighbour who cannot drive to the next town;
the family without a car, whose local Albert Heijn happens to be the one with empty shelves;
people who are ill, or who cannot stand in line for long, or whose budget does not allow a big shop elsewhere.

A phone call, a spare carton of soup, an extra loaf: these are small acts with a large heart.

"Preparedness at its best is a community affair".

We have done this before

If 100% of the Dutch were super cool with three days of old-fashioned supermarket closure, we would simply have returned to our parents' lives. Many of us remember when weekend closure was extended due to religious holidays, and families had to 'prep' for three or four days of shop closures. Thursday evening meant the big grocery run; the freezer and the pantry did the rest.

If our parents could do it easily, we should be able to do it too. It is not a lost art. It is merely a forgotten rhythm — and a rhythm can be relearned, calmly, one tin at a time.

When this is over: Kick-start your preparedness cabinet

You do not need to buy everything at once. Here is a simple schema: the first items to stock, in order of priority. Buy a few items with your weekly shop, and before you know it, your cabinet is ready.

Your Preparedness Cabinet: the First Ten Items

Water — the single most important item, and luckily inexpensive in the Netherlands. Count on about 3 litres per person per day for drinking and cooking; our tap water is excellent, so a few filled bottles will do.

Long-life milk or a plant-based alternative — for porridge, coffee and cooking. One to two litres.

Bread substitutes — crackers, crispbread, or rusks; they keep for months and need no freezer. One packet.

Tinned or dried protein — beans, chickpeas, tinned fish, lentils. Four to five tins.

Rice, pasta, or oats — the calm backbone of many meals. One kilo.

Tinned vegetables and fruit — your vitamins when the fresh aisle is empty. Four to five tins.

Soup — tins or packets; the most comforting emergency meal there is. Three to four portions.

Cooking oil, salt, and herbs — small items, but greatly missed when absent. One of each.

Peanut butter or another spread — calories, protein, and comfort in one jar.

Treats — chocolate, cookies, tea. Morale is a nutrient too!

Store everything cool, dark and dry, and rotate: what comes in goes behind, what is oldest goes in front.

We have written extra posts for GLUTENFREE & SPROUTS.

Also, about sewage troubles.

Store everything cool, dark and dry, and rotate: what comes in goes behind, what is oldest goes in front. Write the expiry dates in a little list and check it every now and then — a pleasant Sunday-afternoon job with a cup of tea.

The moral: Preparedness is not a hobby. It is a necessity — as this week has shown, not in theory but on our own doorsteps. Yet it is a necessity that, done calmly and creatively, makes life better: full cupboards, quieter minds, stronger neighbourhoods.

Don't worry: try to transform your worries into positive actions. Worries cannot survive being turned into something useful.