Size a food and water store to your household, and keep it in date
The Food & Water Planner is a fillable A4 PDF for sizing a household's water and no-cook food store to the people in it and the number of days you choose, using the figures GOV.UK Prepare and Ready Scotland publish. It then gives you pages to record where the store is and the date on each item, so it stays usable. It is for any UK household that would rather work out a few days' store on paper than guess, with one page for babies, special diets and allergies and another for pets.
- Two sums and a shopping plan: people times litres times days for water, people times days times meals for food, split by type, then eight weeks of small additions to the ordinary shop so the store is built without a rush.
- Pages for particular needs: ready-to-use formula and a line for how you would sterilise bottles, allergies and prescribed diets with the store items checked as safe, and a per-pet food table with water lines and the vet's out-of-hours number.
- 16 A4 pages and 392 fillable fields. Type into it in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Apple Preview, or print it and write in it. A rotation log and a twice-a-year check help you spot anything close to its date and replace it in time.
Secure card payment by Stripe. It downloads the moment you pay, so by buying you ask for it straight away and there’s no 14-day cancellation. Terms of sale.
When the news makes you want to fill a trolley
The planner is built for the opposite. You size the store to your own people and your own number of days, then spread the buying over eight weeks of ordinary shops. The file suggests an order, and marks it as its own: anything for a baby, a pet or a special diet first, then bottled water, then tins. For when an event is already on the news, it has one note: buy what is on this week's line and no more.
Official numbers, and honest about the gaps
Every official figure in the file names its source, and the last page lists the publishers, from GOV.UK Prepare, Ready Scotland, the Welsh Government and nidirect to the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland, Gas Safe Register, the UK Health Security Agency and the NHS. Where there is no official number, such as how much to keep for a pet, the file says so and asks for your own. The food types table and the eight-week plan are marked as the file's own, not the government's. It also explains why it talks about a few days rather than the 72 hours you may have read.
A store that stays in date
A store that is never rotated is a cupboard of out-of-date tins. The rotation log has columns for the item, the date on it, whether that date is use-by or best-before, where it is kept and when it was used or replaced, with GOV.UK's explanation of the two kinds of date above it. The twice-a-year check, when the clocks change, puts formula, pet food and special-diet items first, because they are the hardest to replace in a hurry, and asks whether the tin opener is still with the store.
Look inside
Shown filled in, in a made-up household’s handwriting. Yours arrives blank, with every line ready to type into.
What’s inside
10 sections across 16 pages. Fill in what applies and skip what doesn’t.
When not to buy this
Do not buy it for the guidance. GOV.UK's Prepare campaign publishes the water figures and the kit list for free, Ready Scotland publishes its three-day advice, and the Welsh Government and nidirect have their own pages. The planner sums them up, names them and lists them on its last page. What you are paying for is the sums, the tables and the log, laid out for you to fill in for your household and keep in one place. If you already keep a dated store and rotate it, or you are one person with a cupboard you know by heart, you do not need this. If you want to store food for months, this is not that file: like the official guidance, it works in days. It is not medical, legal or dietary advice, and nothing in it changes a dose. For medicines it points you to your pharmacist or GP, and for sterilising bottles without power, to your health visitor or midwife.
Questions
Does it tell me how much water and food to keep?+
It gives you the official figures and the sums, not a single number. For water, GOV.UK Prepare says there is no standard figure, then gives a minimum for drinking and a higher figure that adds basic cooking and hygiene, per person per day. Ready Scotland says three days. You write in your people and your target days, multiply, and choose a total between the two that fits your household and your space. For food there is no official quantity, so the file counts servings (people times days times meals) and splits them by type in a table it marks as its own. The free sample shows both sums filled in for a household of four and a dog. The full file arrives blank for your own figures.
Can I fill it in on screen?+
Yes. It is a 16-page A4 PDF with 392 form fields. Open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Apple Preview, type into it and save it. Or print it and write in it. The file asks you to keep a printed copy with the store itself, because paper is the version that works when the power is off.
Does it cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?+
Yes. The baseline page sets out what each nation publishes: GOV.UK Prepare for England, Ready Scotland's three-day advice, the Welsh Government's page, which points to GOV.UK Prepare, and nidirect's kit list for Northern Ireland. The Priority Services Register line gives the register for Great Britain and, for Northern Ireland, NI Water's Customer Care Register. The allergen and cooking notes name Food Standards Scotland alongside the Food Standards Agency.
What exactly do I get?+
A PDF file, A4, that you download straight after paying. Every line is a real form field: open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Apple Preview, type into it and save. Or print it and write by hand. We also email you a link to your downloads.
Does it work in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?+
Yes. Where the rules or services differ between the four nations, the file says so and points to the right official service for each.
Will it go out of date?+
It names the official service to check rather than printing fees or amounts that change. If we update the file, your download link gives you the current version.
Can I get a refund?+
Because it downloads the moment you pay, the 14-day cancellation period doesn’t apply to digital files you’ve asked to receive straight away. If a file won’t open or something is wrong with it, email us and we’ll sort it out.
Secure card payment by Stripe. It downloads the moment you pay, so by buying you ask for it straight away and there’s no 14-day cancellation. Terms of sale.
The Food & Water Planner is general information to help you organise your household’s records. It is not legal, financial or medical advice. Written by Tom Calder for PreparedBritain, an independent publisher not affiliated with HM Government.
