Tesco has said it is introducing limits on purchase of some key household essentials, just days after its chief executive appealed for no “unnecessary” panic buying as a result of the tightening of coronavirus restrictions in the UK.
The UK’s largest supermarket chain revealed a three items per customer limit on flour, dried pasta, toilet roll, baby wipes and antibacterial wipes.
All the major supermarkets introduced temporary restrictions in March after shelves were stripped bare of essentials in the weeks leading up to the COVID-19 lockdown.
They were slowly lifted as stocks recovered and stores are anxious to avert a repeat.
Tesco said its restrictions applied to all store and online sales though digital orders would also see limits on a number of additional items such as rice and canned vegetables.
Britain’s largest supermarket chain recently saw as “exceptional growth” in its online business with the retailer now serving nearly 1.5 million customers online each week, up from around 600,000 at the start of the pandemic.
This represented Tesco’s most notable growth in online demand as customers stayed at home during the pandemic, thereby accelerating a trend towards shopping for food on the internet rather than in stores
Online grocery sales have generally soared in the United Kingdom since coronavirus lockdowns were introduced in March, with retailers anticipating that some shoppers who have made the shift will permanently ditch their old routines.
A Tesco spokeswoman told reporters, “We have good availability, with plenty of stock to go round, and we would encourage our customers to shop as normal.
“To ensure that everyone can keep buying what they need, we have introduced bulk-buy limits on a small number of products.”
It is understood the decision was a reaction to evidence of a small uplift in demand for the goods.
Tesco’s decision comes a day after one of its ‘big four’ rivals Morrison’s introduced similar measures blaming evidence of stockpiling.
Morrison’s restrictions included limits on products such as toilet roll, disinfectants and bleach to a maximum of three.
The other members of the big four chains, Sainsbury’s and Asda, are yet to impose any restrictions.
Dave Lewis, the chief executive of Tesco, sought to reassure customers after the Prime Minister told people to work from home where possible and ordered restaurants and bars to close early to tackle a spike in the pandemic.
Mr Lewis told reporters, “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.”
Tesco, is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer with headquarters in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England, and the United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in the world measured by revenues. It has shops in seven countries across Asia and Europe, and is the market leader of groceries in the UK, Ireland, Hungary and Thailand.
