TESCO BOSS: PUT BACK FOOD YOU DON’T NEED
Tesco boss tells shoppers: If you don’t need it this week, t ake it out of your basket
THE boss of Britain’s l argest retailer has pleaded with panicbuyers 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 t o 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, Stephen Powis, national medical director at NHS England, said those involved should be ‘ashamed’.
He added: ‘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 incredibly important that they too have access to food, to those essential supplies that they need. Frankly we should all be ashamed that that has to happen – it’s unacceptable. These are the very people that we all need to look after perhaps us or our loved ones in the weeks to come.’
Despite the pleas, shoppers yesterday continued to empty shelves of toilet roll, pasta, tinned food and medicines. There was also massive buying of alcohol, pet food and cat litter. 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’