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The Government is set to urge Britons to stock up on tinned food and bottled water in case of emergencies such as extreme weather, cyber attacks or hostile state action.
But some won’t need telling twice, since there’s a growing number of women in the UK who are already preparing themselves and their families for when ‘disaster strikes again’, be that a natural catastrophe or even the start of World War III.
Amid conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as cyber attacks and extreme heat becoming a ‘prepper’ is a flourishing trend – and not only with middle-aged men who love cargo trousers and boast underground bunkers.
Plenty of professional women across Britain have now joined the movement, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic.
For Dr Sarita Robinson, an associate dean in the school of psychology and humanities at the University of Lancashire, the global outbreak of coronavirus finally proved to her friends and family that her prepping over the last 20 years wasn’t ‘bonkers’.
‘Most people are a lot more on board with the prepping now,’ said the 50-year-old, from Preston, who’s married to a retired computer programmer with two children in their 20s.
Noting the rise of female preppers, Sarita told the Daily Mail: ‘I think since the pandemic more people are aware that things can go wrong quite quickly… the world does seem a little more unpredictable at the moment.’
The academic isn’t alone in her preparedness. Wife and mother-of-one Ana, based in Wales, has been prepping for years but stepped up her efforts during the Covid pandemic when she couldn’t find baby formula for her newborn.
Dr Sarita Robinson is just one of a growing number of women in the UK who are readying themselves and their families for when ‘disaster strikes again’
The 41-year-old now has cupboards filled with flour, oats, lentils, beans and other tinned goods, ready to cook from scratch, alongside medicine and cleaning supplies. She preserves her food by pressure canning and dehydrating.
All her vehicles have small packs of essentials inside, filled with water, power banks, warm clothing, waterproofs, snacks, a micro cooking stove and a water filter.
Ana, who has 32,000 followers across her Instagram and YouTube accounts, founded the UK Preppers Club on Facebook, which has more than 10,000 members, and insists the preppers she knows are just ‘ordinary, sane people’.
‘Many are women, parents, families, people who simply want stability and security. They are gardeners, cooks, teachers, office workers, nothing like the stereotypes you see in films,’ said Ana.
Citing negative stereotypes of ‘grumpy middle-aged men surrounded by cans of food or in a bunker,’ Ana insisted: ‘I’m not prepping for an apocalypse or zombie invasion.
‘Most of the things I prepare for are actually very ordinary. Economic pressures, price spikes, supply disruptions, storms, power cuts or simply times when life becomes more difficult financially.’
She insisted that preparedness ‘is really about softening the impact of unforeseen circumstances, rather than preparing yourself for the end of the world’.
‘Having a stocked pantry, knowing how to cook from basic ingredients, growing a little food and understanding where your food comes from – those things create resilience in everyday life and in my eyes that’s what prepping truly is,’ insisted the mother.
Melanie Williams, a wellness advocate and mother-of-six from the UK, preps to always ensure she’s ‘one step ahead’
Donna Lloyd from Wales says ongoing events in Ukraine and now the Middle East have caused people to ‘reassess their safety and readiness’
Ana continued: ‘These are things people did for generations before supermarkets made us rely on weekly shopping. So none of it is a new concept, just a forgotten way of thinking for many.’
Likewise, Sarita, who appeared as a psychology expert in Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston on Disney+ recently, insisted: ‘Most of the preppers I know are completely normal people.’
The mother-of-two revealed that parents of young children make up a lot of the prepping folk she knows.
In recent times, mothers across Britain have taken to prepper Facebook groups, asking where to begin when it comes to becoming a ‘doomsday prepper’.
Sarita suggested buying extra food is a good place to start. ‘We try to keep around three months of supply of food in the house.
‘However, it isn’t any of the fancy survival food that’s marketed. It’s just food that we would normally eat, we just buy extras. So instead of buying a small pack of rice we would buy several kilos at a time.
‘The great thing is that this actually works out a lot cheaper in the long run. I think people think you have to do something special when you are stockpiling food but it just isn’t the case.
‘You should just buy food that you would normally eat but just have a little bit extra each week.’
Ana, from Wales – who founded the UK Preppers Club on Facebook, which has more than 10,000 members – said: ‘I always say: don’t overcomplicate it. Focus on real-life usefulness’
Sarita – who doesn’t have a bunker (a house modification some international preppers boast of), but wouldn’t be averse to purchasing one if she could – also keeps a supply of over-the-counter medicines, as well as other basics such as water purification tablets, a wind-up radio, a battery pack and power banks for mobile phones.
‘It’s also important to keep some treats and a good supply of teabags, sugar and some UHT milk. You can recover from most emergencies as long as you have some hot sweet tea and biscuits available,’ added the professional.
Sarita started prepping after living in LA for a year in 2004, and experiencing an earthquake. ‘It really made me reflect on how quickly the world could change from being safe and predictable to being dangerous and chaotic.’
She has completed a range of training in order to survive a disaster – including something as simple as first aid, to the more unusual skills such as helicopter underwater evacuation, firefighting and wilderness survival.
Sarita believes that everyone should be a prepper, suggesting that if everyone who can afford to preps, then local governments’ limited resources can go straight to vulnerable groups such as the elderly.
She added: ‘I am hopeful that everyone will undertake some preparations for emergencies, even if it is just updating their first aid training and buying some extra canned food. In the heat of an emergency these things can make a real difference.’ Ana, meanwhile, revealed that she has seen prepping become more popular amid ‘global uncertainty’.
‘When you know you have food in the cupboard, practical skills, and a plan if things become difficult, life feels less stressful. Preparedness is about removing panic from situations that might otherwise cause worry,’ she explained.
Donna Lloyd, from Wales, who now works in education after serving in the military, says ongoing events in Ukraine and now the Middle East have caused people to ‘reassess their safety and readiness’.
Melanie’s well-stocked larder means she is prepared to combat most ‘everyday disruptions’ such as ‘rising food costs, supply issues and power cuts’
The 60-year-old – who runs a local preppers group on Facebook – also suggested that some Britons would no doubt be increasing their knowledge of prepping after seeing the government’s apparent ‘lack of readiness and preparation’.
She noted how a business in Powys, focused on the tools apparently needed for prepping (think anything from freeze dried food to axes, crossbows and gas masks), had seen a ‘significant uptake’ in online purchases and in-store visitors recently.
Donna’s earliest memory of prepping was when as a child, her grandmother gave her a paperback book about survival after having lived through the uncertainty of both World Wars.
But it wasn’t until after the pandemic when Donna started becoming an enthusiastic prepper.
‘Our electricity went off and a neighbour brought a camping stove to enable us to make a cup of tea,’ she recalled.
‘In that moment I saw how such a simple object meant the difference between the ability to make hot drinks and food and even being able to purify water, and being vulnerable and helpless.’
Donna now has supplies at the ready and keeps three months worth of food (including soups, stews, dried milk, sugar, tea and coffee) in the house, as well as some in her van.
She insisted that prepping is no longer for the ‘paranoid, isolated individuals’ – instead it’s for the mothers, fathers, teachers, people who want to keep themselves and their families safe if another disaster strikes.
‘More and more the message to prep is coming across from Eastern Europe, places like Poland and Finland, who neighbour Russia, and whose prepping and readiness both as individuals and families also extends into the community and is a part of instilling a feeling of unity,’ said Donna.
She said she doesn’t like to feel like she needs to carry around a bag filled with essentials or stock up on food, and would much rather the world be more peaceful, however warns: ‘Prepare, be ready for the unexpected, but get on with living and enjoy life.’
For Sarita (pictured), an associate dean in the school of psychology and humanities at the University of Lancashire, the global outbreak of coronavirus finally proved to her friends and family that her prepping over the last 20 years wasn’t ‘bonkers’.
The extent to which preppers engage in the habit varies. At one extreme, there’s the doomsday preppers ‘readying for war and a complete deconstruction of society’ while others take a more moderate approach.
Melanie Williams, a wellness advocate and mother-of-six from the UK, is less worried about total societal collapse. Instead, she preps to always ensure she’s ‘one step ahead’.
Her well-stocked larder means she is prepared to combat most ‘everyday disruptions’ such as ‘rising food costs, supply issues and power cuts’.
‘We have all seen how quickly things can change, whether it is global events or local emergencies. It is not about panic, it is about peace of mind and staying one step ahead,’ she said.
Taking a ‘slow and steady approach’ to stockpiling, she simply adds ‘one or two extra items during my regular grocery shop, things like beans, oats, or a bottle of oil’.
She then ‘decants many everyday items into glass jars and containers’ so that she can see what she’s got, and what might be going off, all of which she documents in written records.
‘Bulkier items like large bags of rice, oats, or flour go into food-grade storage buckets to keep them safe and organised long-term. I regularly update a detailed inventory to cross off what has been used or add anything new.
‘I keep a main pantry for everyday use, a separate one with surplus items, and a bulk pantry for long-term storage.’
Melanie also ‘preps’ by growing her own food, adding: ‘We are also learning how to raise goats, chickens, and other animals to support our self-sufficiency.
‘My boys tend to be more into survival skills, so I balance practical life skills with their interests.’
Her mother always had at least three to six months worth of food and supplies when Melanie was growing up, so it was only natural she would do the same for her own family.
But although she has always taken an interest in being ‘prepared’, times of turbulence have also kept her motivated. She described the Covid-19 pandemic as a ‘wake-up call’ that amplified her approach.
‘When people were queuing outside shops, I rarely had to because we already had what we needed at home,’ she recalled.
‘I have always kept a backup of essentials, something I learned from my mum growing up, she would always say to me have at least three to six months worth of food and water.’
While Melanie is open about her prepping, helping others learn her ways on her YouTube channel, she admitted some remain private about their habit over fears of being judged as ‘extreme’.
‘Some may also keep quiet because they do not want to draw attention to themselves, and that includes being private about what they have,’ revealed Melanie.
‘You never really know how someone might act if they are hungry or desperate,’ she said, highlighting a common fear among preppers who worry about others stealing their stock.
But for Melanie, her children are at the heart of her motivations for prepping. She said her main aim is to ensure they will be ‘secure’ and can have their ‘needs met’.
It comes as a new public information drive is set to encourage households to prepare for severe disruption from events such as extreme weather, cyber attacks or hostile state action.
The Government’s national resilience campaign will highlight simple steps people can take to keep themselves and their families safe in a crisis where power or water supplies are taken out, or shops are forced to close.
It comes as several incidents, including extreme heat, flooding and cyber attacks, have transpired over the last few months both in the UK and across the globe.
Louise Haigh, the First Secretary of State, is said to be organising crisis planning across various Whitehall departments to support aid being given to affected communities more quickly.
A Government official told the Financial Times: ‘There will be practical advice on things you can do to improve domestic resilience, like having some bottled water and tinned food.’ But the source insisted: ‘It will be common sense, not scaremongering.’
Ministers are also stepping up work on national security by updating the so-called ‘war book’ that sets out how departments respond to major threats.
The biggest home defence exercise in decades will take place next year ‘to ensure that should the worst ever happen, we will always be ready’, MPs were told last month.
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: ‘Safeguarding national security is the first priority of any government.
‘We’re committed to raising awareness of simple steps households can take to make themselves more resilient, as well as driving forward the Home Defence Programme to build our country’s preparedness for various threats.’
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