10,000 are pinged in city

Supermarkets say they are continuing to receive regular deliveries and have urged customers not to ‘panic buy’ in response to reports of emptying shelves.

The UK's biggest supermarkets say any shortages are "patchy" across stores but said there was no need for customers to change their shopping habits.

They said any gaps on the shelves were temporary and were occurring in pockets rather than across supply chains.

Self-isolating supply chain workers, a shortage of HGV drivers and the hot weather are contributing to delivery glitches, they say.

A Co-op spokesman said: "We are sorry that we are running low on some products but are working closely with our suppliers to get restocked quickly."

A Sainsbury's spokeswoman said: "While we might not always have the exact product a customer is looking for in every store, large quantities of products are being delivered to stores daily and our colleagues are focused on getting them on to the shelves as quickly as they can."

Tesco confirmed that it had ‘plenty’ of food and deliveries arriving across the UK every day but said sporadic disruption from the industry-wide shortage of HGV drivers and an increase in staff self-isolating on a precautionary basis was leading to pockets of temporary low availability across a small number of products.

Iceland managing director Richard Walker has said staff absence rates at his firm are now double the usual number, with the figure rising 50% "week on week" due to people being told they have to self-isolate by the NHS app.