With the possibility of food shortages over the winter, the Isle of Man Examiner asked the public if they were seeing anything missing from supermarket shelves.

The Isle of Man Steam Packet recently purchased the cargo ship MV Arrow to help with the import of food and other goods to the island.

However, in the event the ship doesn’t sail due to adverse weather conditions, residents may have no choice but to freeze products such as bread, as suggested by DEFA Minister Clare Barber.

Brian and Paulette Colquitt are ‘worried’ about the lack of supply.

Paulette said: ‘Living in Ramsey, we don’t have the choice that Douglas has because you’ve got M&S, but we can’t keep coming up here every couple of days for bread.’

Asked if freezing their bread would work for them, Brian said: ‘Not really because we’ve only got a small freezer and to put a loaf in takes up a lot of room.’

Paulette added: ‘You’d have to freeze two or three loaves at the same time as well, and we haven’t got room to do that.

‘Especially for families, if they’re making sandwiches it’s a lot.’

They explained that bread was the only thing they’d already been noticing as missing from shops.

Josie Lloyd didn’t share their concerns, saying: ‘I don’t eat a lot of bread and it wouldn’t be a choice for me to freeze bread because I don’t have a freezer.’

The woman from Farmhill added: ‘I previously asked in Marks and Spencer if all of the bread had been from Ramsey and they said it was, so I’ve definitely noticed a big difference there with empty shelves since Ramsey Bakery shut.

‘And that bakery had been going for how many years? I think the government should have put in some money and kept it on.

‘I also went to Tesco and they don’t seem to have as much cat food as they used to. But everything’s just dependent on if the boat goes, I suppose. There’s nothing you can do. We live on an island.

‘Government should be making more effort to open up another bakery or something, they should be doing that.

‘We don’t have enough on this island, never mind bringing it in from elsewhere.’

Angela and John Spencer, from Ramsey, didn’t think the alternative of freezing bread was appropriate.

‘I think that bread doesn’t last very long if it’s frozen and it’s already a day old when it gets here into the stores,’ John said. ‘I don’t see much point in freezing it.’

Angela added: ‘If we run out, we’ll manage.’

The couple have noticed fewer packets of biscuits in shops, saying there’s not much choice.

‘Sometimes you go to get something for a meal and you come out with something totally different because you’ve got to rethink what you’re going to have because there’s nothing on the shelf,’ Angela said.

John said: ‘There’s enough for us anyway, there’s only us two. It’s not like we’re feeding a full family or anything.’

Carrying a bag of biscuits when they spoke to us, Angela added: ‘We’ve bought ahead and got some Christmas biscuits, pudding and a cake just in case they run out.’

Susan Quirk, of Ramsey, wasn’t worried.

She said: ‘We like our bread but I think the government response has been fine. It’s enough.

‘I freeze most things already anyway, especially since Ramsey Bakery shut. I have noticed some missing food, mostly bread.’