Supermarkets Enforce New Rules To Stop Panic Buys

Empty shelves at Sainsbury’s in Market Harborough
Pic: Red Williams

Sainsbury’s is to restrict purchases on all grocery products and shut its cafes and fresh food counters as supermarkets step up their efforts to combat coronavirus panic buying.

Customers will now only be able to buy a maximum of three of any grocery product.

A cap of two is going to be imposed on the most popular items, such as toilet roll, soap and UHT milk.

Sainsbury’s chief executive Mike Coupe said: “We have enough food coming into the system, but are limiting sales so that it stays on shelves for longer and can be bought by a larger numbers of customers.”

Meat, fish and pizza counters and cafes are being closed from Thursday to free up lorry and warehouse capacity, as well as shelf-stacking time, for essential items to be replenished.

Sainsbury’s has also announced that its stores will only be open to customers over 70 and those with a disability for the first hour of trading on Thursday – in Market Harborough that is 7.30am – 8.30am.

Plans are in place to beef up its “click and collect” offering, and these two groups will be given priority access when new slots become available.

Meanwhile, Tesco has suspended all-night opening in big stores and Waitrose is drafting in hundreds of extra staff to cope with demand.

The Sainsbury’s decision to ration products comes after discount rival Aldi said on Monday that it was limiting customers to four items of any one product.

Waitrose emailed customers on Wednesday to say that it too was “reluctantly” introducing limits on some of its most in-demand online items.