Woolworths increases home deliveries to vulnerable southsiders

Woolworths Coorparoo will reduce trading hours from tomorrow to help increase delivery of groceries to vulnerable southsiders.

A shopper wears a face mask as a preventive measure against coronavirus at a Woolworths checkout. Picture: AAP/James Ross

WOOLWORTHS Coorparoo is one of 10 Brisbane stores to spearhead efforts to increase delivery of groceries to the homes of vulnerable customers.

The grocery giant announced today the store would reduce trading hours from tomorrow (Thursday March 26) to 11am to 6pm to support the prioritising of deliveries.

Woolworths Coorparoo would be one of 41 stores across the country to become a Priority Delivery Hub and would use the additional hours the store is not open for online orders, with a focus on meeting the increased demand from priority assistance customers which includes the elderly, people with disability, those with compromised immunity and people in mandatory isolation.

Woolworths currently operates more than 1000 Woolworths Supermarkets and Metro Food stores nationwide.

In addition to the Priority Delivery Hubs, Woolworths is supporting those vulnerable in the community by:

■ Operating dedicated early shopping hours during the week for the elderly and those with a disability;

■ Committing additional support to leading Australian hunger relief charities, Morningside based Foodbank and Fareshare and OzHarvest; and

■ Delivery of more than 75,000 packs of toilet rolls to Meals on Wheels for distribution to elderly in the community.

Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci said due to an extraordinary level of demand for groceries in recent weeks as coronavirus restrictions were debated, the group had to reduce trading hours in a small number of stores to turn them into Priority Delivery Hubs to help assist those who could not access a store to get products they need.

“To help support getting basic food and essentials to those that need it most, our teams have been doing everything they can to scale up online and home deliveries to the elderly, people with disabilities or those in mandatory self-isolation,” he said.

“At a time when hunger relief charities are seeing a surge in demand for providing meals and basic essentials, we’re also pleased to increase our commitment to our partners OzHarvest, Foodbank and FareShare and we hope our additional long term support will help them with any gaps they are facing as they continue to help those most in need in the community.”

Social distancing in stores

Woolworths has also rolled out some further measures in stores to support the health and wellbeing of team and customers. These include:

■ A store greeter to wipe down baskets, trolleys and direct customers to the notice board for key social distancing, trading hours and product limit information;

■ Closing some registers in the self serve and express check outs to provide additional space between customers in those areas;

Mr Banducci said these were in addition to social distancing measures that were implemented by Woolworths earlier this week, including beginning to install plexiglass screens at registers, informative signage to support social distancing in stores and additional cleaning and hygiene processes.

“The measures we’ve introduced have been well received by our team and customers alike, and we’re grateful for the community support on this incredibly important public health effort.”

To apply for Priority Assistance delivery, customers need to complete the form at woolworths.com.au/priorityassistance or call 1800 000 610 to find out more.