Morrisons starts rationing items after ‘unnecessary’ second wave panic buyers force supermarkets to limit stock
MORRISONS has become the UK’s first supermarket chain to bring back rationing on some products – despite there being plenty of stock.
The supermarket has rationed essentials such as toilet roll because shoppers are unnecessarily panic buying.
There is a limit of three per person on some items according to ITV news.
A Morrisons spokesperson said: “We are introducing a limit on a small number of key products, such as toilet roll and disinfectant.
“Our stock levels of these products are good but we want to ensure that they are available for everyone.”
Supermarket bosses have spent the week urging shoppers not to panic buy and reassuring customers that there is plenty to go round.
But people have still been seen bulk buying anyway because they think there will be another lockdown.
The Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new measures this week to curb the rising number of cases of coronavirus but stopped short of returning to lockdown.
Panic buying “unecessary”
Tesco boss Dave Lewis has said there’s no need to hoard goods as new lockdown measures don’t affect the supply chain.
He told Sky News: “The message would be one of reassurance. I think the UK saw how well the food industry managed last time, so there’s very good supplies of food.
“We just don’t want to see a return to unnecessary panic buying because that creates a tension in the supply chain that’s not necessary.
“And therefore we would just encourage customers to continue to buy as normal.”
Despite the reassurance, a sign was spotted limiting toilet roll to just one per customer at one Tesco branch in Cambridgeshire.
The notice said: “Due to availability issues toilet roll is currently restricted to one per customer.”
It’s understood that restrictions can be put in place at Tesco store managers’ discretion but there is no store-wide rationing in place.
One Iceland store in West Worthing was forced to put up handwritten notes stopping people from bulk buying toilet roll and kitchen roll.
The supermarket said it was “strictly a local initiative” and not a company wide policy.
A spokesperson for the retailer said: “We have seen a modest increase in demand for paper products in the last few days but there is no evidence of panic buying in our stores and there is plenty of stock in the system.”
It urged customers to “shop responsibly” and that there is so far no need to implement any restrictions.
They added: “The empty shelves found in March could also have been avoided if people had adhered to that simple advice.”
Panic buying at the start of the pandemic left shelves empty of essentials like toilet roll pasta and flour.
Research from March found that the empty shelves wasn’t caused by a handful of shoppers buying excessively, but more a case of everyone putting one extra of everything in their basket.
The boss of Aldi has urged shoppers not to panic buy amid fears that supermarkets will run out of stock and asked shoppers to buy considerately.
Shoppers are urging supermarkets to start putting limits on popular items amid fears of panic buying.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak today announced a raft of new support for jobs and the economy as coronavirus cases rise.