Coronavirus panic buying hits northern beaches Woolworths and Coles
Customers were stunned to find empty supermarket shelves on the Northern Beaches. It’s not just toilet roll that people are panic buying.
Mosman
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Coronavirus panic buying has hit the Northern Beaches.
Customers dashed around the store at Woolworths at Balgowlah last night to find aisle after aisle with empty shelves.
Toilet roll was completely sold out while shelves for pasta and rice were cleared.
Anxious customers before them had also snapped up boxes of paracetamol, bottles of eucalyptus and bags of organic frozen fruit.
Similar scenes were replicated in nearby Coles this morning. Stacks of tinned spaghetti were cleared, the rice section was barren and desperate shoppers were snapping up piles of serviettes as toilet paper had run out.
Feminine hygiene products were almost all gone and only a few bottles of handwash remained.
A spokeswoman for Woolworths said the supermarket has limited people to four packs
of toilet roll per transaction. It apologised to customers for the inconvenience caused by temporary stock shortages.
“Our teams are continuing to work hard on restocking stores with extra deliveries of long-life food and household staples from our distribution centres,” the spokeswoman said.
“The vast majority of the products ranged in our stores remain available for our customers as normal.”
Coles said it is contact with suppliers, government and transport partners on the situation.
It has increased deliveries from distribution centres and its teams are working hard to fill the shelves as quickly as possible.
“While there may be some temporary stock shortages, the vast majority of products in our stores and via Coles online remain available for customers,” the spokeswoman said.