TESCO BOSS: PUT BACK FOOD YOU DON’T NEED

Tesco boss tells shoppers: If you don’t need it this week, take it out of your basket 6am QUEUE AROUND THE BLOCK AT TESCO HORDES HEAD TO COSTCO IN GLASGOW

THE boss of Britain’s largest retailer has pleaded with panic buyers to search their conscience and ask themselves: ‘Do I need everything in my trolley?’

Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis called for calm as store shelves were yesterday stripped bare again and massive queues formed outside stores across the UK.

Pleading with shoppers to pause for a moment to think of others, he said: ‘If you’re heading out today or next week we ask one thing: buy only what you need, so that there is enough for everyone.

‘Maybe at the end of each aisle ask yourself: “Next week, do I need everything in my trolley or basket?” If the answer is “no”, then please consider putting some things back on shelves.

‘If all of us do just a bit of that, then every little will help.’

Giving a personal pledge that ‘there is enough food and essentials for everyone’, Mr Lewis assured customers that food was ‘arriving every day at vastly increased volumes... and record levels.’

He said if customers shopped normally, ‘we can fear one less thing: putting food on the table for ourselves and our loved ones’.

Tesco, which employs more than 300,000 staff in the UK and Ireland at more than 3,400 stores, is recruiting 20,000 more workers to help ease the crisis.

Reflecting on images of empty shelves, downcast elderly shoppers and long queues, Mr Lewis said: ‘It’s been a tough week for the whole country. No one is untouched. No one is immune to challenges we face as a country.

‘Covid-19 is bringing huge changes to the way we live and work.

‘Sadly, we are closer to the beginning of all this than the end, but it’s clear that our national spirit is alive and well and nowhere is that more evident than in food retail. We’ll play our part, but anyone watching the news knows that this last week has been extraordinary for all shops.’

He said up to double the usual amounts of milk, bread, rice and pasta had been put on the shelves last week and 3.4 million toilet rolls had been sent out – up from the 2 million usually sold per week.

Mr Lewis’s call for calm was echoed by fellow supermarket chiefs and Environment Secretary George Eustice. During a press conference yesterday, Mr Eustice ruled out rationing for now but warned people that they needed to ‘be responsible’.

He added: ‘I think it is best for retailers to collectively come together and decide what the appropriate limit is for each item.’

Mr Eustice pointed to the experience of France and Ireland where a surge in demand tapered off once people stocked up, but said the Government was keeping ‘a close eye’ on profiteering following reports that the price of some products had been hiked up.

To ensure that the elderly, vulnerable and health workers get access to supplies, retailers including Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Asda have introduced ‘golden shopping hours’ where access is granted to only certain groups of people.

It followed a plea by critical care nurse Dawn Bilbrough, who was seen sobbing after visiting a supermarket following her 48-hour hospital shift only to find no fruit or vegetables. A video of her response went viral on social media.

Asked yesterday about the impact of panic buying, NHS national medical director Stephen Powis said: ‘I would like to make a plea on behalf of all my colleagues in the NHS, nurses, doctors, paramedics and many, many others who are working incredibly hard at the moment to manage this outbreak of coronavirus.

‘It’s important that they too have access to food, to those essential supplies that they need. Frankly, we should all be ashamed that has to happen – it’s unacceptable.’

Despite the pleas for calm, hundreds of shoppers yesterday laid siege outside the Costco superstore in Springburn, Glasgow.

Hours before the wholesaler even opened for business, customers began forming large queues that zig-zagged around the car park.

The store employed a large number of security personnel to help maintain order as numbers were also limited inside.

And at a branch of Tesco in New Malden, South London, shoppers had formed a queue around the huge car park by 6am yesterday. There were similar queues outside a nearby branch of Aldi.

‘There’s enough food and essentials for everyone’

PANIC buying sent sales soaring by more than 50 per cent at supermarkets last week as shoppers spooked by the coronavirus rushed out to stockpile everything from toilet roll to dried pasta.

Senior sources at major chains said spending at individual shops had hit even higher levels as lines that have waned in popularity in recent years – such as tinned meat or vegetables and long-life milk – flew off the shelves.

‘Food keeps coming in but the shelves are being picked dry,’ said a director at one major grocery chain. ‘Normally supermarkets work on the basis that, with a fair wind, we can grow sales marginally by one or two per cent on last year. But sales have gone up 50 per cent, even 70 per cent in some cases.’

A senior source at another major grocery chain said his stores had seen ‘waves of demand hitting each category in turn’.

First, household products such as toilet roll and cleaning products were snapped up. Then it was so-called ambient foods which can be stored for weeks or months, such as dried pasta, packets of cereal and tinned food. Finally, in the second half of last week, shoppers started clearing the shelves of fresh food such as fruit and vegetables.

Referring to astonishing scenes of long queues outside supermarkets and fights breaking out over increasingly scarce products, the source added: ‘It feels like demand at the moment is still rising day by day so we can’t be sure.

‘But there comes a point when cupboards are full and, while there may be exceptions to this, there is only so much toilet roll the average person wants in their house.’ It is understood top-level discussions have been held between supermarket bosses and the Government about when stockpiling might reach its peak.

The discussions have centred on evidence from other countries that have already experienced the same behaviour. This indicates that frenzied demand may begin to subside as soon as this week ‘once people realise the food is going to keep coming and shops stay open’, one source said.

Supermarkets said last week they were taking steps to reduce the number of options for some food categories, such as pack sizes or varieties of tinned or packaged food, to make it easier for suppliers to meet the surge in demand.

One source said it might mean less choice and that parts of some stores may resemble ‘a 1980s Eastern

European supermarket’ for a period but that it would ease the potential for outright shortages.

The unprecedented demand will be a boon for Britain’s largest grocers which have been battling with rising competition and stagnant sales. One retail director at a national chain said, even after the initial panic-buying subsides, demand at grocery chains is likely to continue at ‘double figures’ throughout the crisis as pubs and restaurants close amid efforts to contain the virus.

The director added: ‘All the money normally spent on Friday nights or Sunday lunchtimes – like Mother’s Day this weekend – will be heading for supermarkets and convenience stores. Staying in is the new going out whether we like it or not. With other high street stores shutting up shop for the foreseeable future, there aren’t going to be that many places to spend money.’

Major chains have sought to alleviate the rise in demand by agreeing new arrangements with suppliers. Morrisons said one Italian supplier had agreed to ship food via sea and through ports rather than overland through France, to avoid crossing borders.