London, UK: Despite the hype, most especially from news media, of panic buying and food shortages in the UK following reports of the spread of corona virus, the situation remains normal with supermarket shelves well stocked.
At best, some stores, such as Tesco, the UK’s largest grocer, have limited the number of purchases of certain items, such as hand sanitiser gels, that individual customers can make.
Sainsbury’s said it was not rationing any products in-store or online yet. Waitrose said it has not put a cap on any of its products in stores but has introduced a temporary cap on certain products on its website, including some anti-bacterial soaps and wipes, “to ensure our customers have access to the products they need”.
A survey by Retail Economics, suggests one in ten UK consumers is stockpiling, based on a sample of 2,000 shoppers. But Andrew Potter, chair in logistics and transport, Cardiff Business School, told the BBC: “Whilst there might be empty shelves at the moment in the shops, over the next week or so, we will see them replenish.
“The supply chain will start to deliver stuff through to the stores and hopefully this shortage – which is fairly short-term – will clear and everything will be back to normal again.”
He said while retailers may have been caught out by the beginning of this shopping surge, they had very sophisticated systems to check changes in demand.
