Panic-buyers hit the shops again
SHELVES lie empty in a Cardiff Asda yesterday, recalling panic-buying scenes we last saw at the start of the coronavirus lockdown in March.
Customers at some supermarkets have begun stockpiling toilet roll and food, with pictures posted on social media of aisles left depleted in scenes familiar from March and early April. It comes despite Health Minister Vaughan Gething saying on Friday that panic-buying is not necessary.
Mr Gething, speaking at a Welsh Government press conference, was asked whether it was “immoral” to panic-buy or whether people should stock up.
“I don’t think I need to comment on the morality of people stocking up but actually, as we saw during the height of the first wave, the normal supply lines are there still in place and able to provide goods for normal shopping patterns and behaviour,” Mr Gething said. “So there isn’t a need to go and buy large additional amounts of items.”
Tesco has now reintroduced purchasing limits for popular products such as toilet rolls, pasta and flour to prevent its shelves becoming bare, saying on Friday that a number of products will be restricted to three items per customer in a repeat of rationing seen at the start of the pandemic.
Flour, dried pasta, toilet roll, baby wipes and anti-bacterial wipes will have purchasing limits in stores, it said. Rival supermarket Morrisons became the first big grocer to bring back rationing on
Thursday, announcing purchasing limits on a raft of cleaning products.
And Asda has said it would be reintroducing marshals to the front of their stores and supermarket aisles to ensure coronavirus measures are being adhered to. Asda updated shoppers with these measures on Friday.
In March, toilet roll was cleared from the aisles and hand sanitiser was also running low in many supermarkets and pharmacists. Shelves which would normally have stocked pasta, flour and tinned tomatoes were also consistently empty. However, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Lidl and Aldi told PA they had “good availability” on Monday and have not experienced any shortages yet.