Hoarders and out of towners hit the shops

The frenzy of shopping and stockpiling groceries heightened last week, with worried shoppers queuing up at supermarkets, butchers and green grocers.

Despite pleas from government leaders to stop the ridiculous buying, shoppers continued to panic, stripping supermarket shelves and buying out local butchers on a daily basis.

Yarragon Foodworks confirmed a bus load of out of town shoppers was at the store early on Tuesday morning ready to fill their bags.

The major supermarkets Coles and Woolworths, as well as IGA and Foodworks stores across West Gippsland have been forced to implement ration systems, restricting customers to only one per person of essential items.

But still, many shoppers found it was a lucky dip as to what was on the shelves and purely in the timing.

The major supermarkets introduced a one hour morning shopping hour for people aged over 65 and disability and concession card holders. Reports indicated there were up to 300 people in line on some mornings.

Local community supermarkets at Trafalgar, Yarragon, Neerim South and Bunyip are trying to put local needs first but some have been flooded with out of town customers.

Staff member Bec Fleming described the Yarragon Foodworks store as extremely crazy and out of control.

“We’ve had people at the door when we open and we’ve never had that before. We had to stand and watch the truck get unloaded to maintain security.

“We have rationed everything to one per person. We are trying to help locals first without disappointing others,” she said.

Bec said a bus of shoppers arrived at the store at 8.30am on Tuesday and bought a lot of stock. She was unsure where they had travelled from but said they were “not nice people” to their staff.

She said after they left she and another staff member had a cry and then got on with the job.

The demand has been similar at Bunyip IGA where manager Ben Leatham said they had every register open every day and shelves had been stripped bare.

Ben reported meat to be the biggest demand. “It’s been crazy. Our loads (deliveries) have been turning up late so we can’t guarantee when we will have stock.

“We know all our locals and we want to look after them. We do home delivery to elderly and others who can’t get out,” he said.