Woolworths Ashwood encourages customers to use QR code

Questions have been raised about why QR check-ins are not mandatory at Victorian supermarkets after infected shoppers visited a number of stores.

Customers have been urged to check in with a QR code at Ashwood Woolworths. Picture: NCA / NewsWire / Ian Currie

Customers are being urged to check-in using QR codes at Victorian supermarkets, despite it not being mandatory.

Despite a number of Covid-positive shoppers visiting Woolies and Coles during Victoria’s latest outbreak, checking into the stores via a QR code is only “highly recommended”.

However, it’s mandatory in South Australia and Western Australia.

At Ashwood Woolworths on Sunday night, a staff member was standing at the entrance holding a sign with the QR code up for shoppers to use, and a number of new check-in signs are also in place at the entrance.

A Woolworths spokesperson said following the latest community outbreak, it had reintroduced health ambassadors across all its Victorian shops.

The ambassadors wipe down trolleys and baskets and monitor customer numbers as needed. “They also inform shoppers about COVIDsafe measures, including the option to use our voluntary customer check-in on the Victorian Government’s QR code system,” the spokesperson said.

Woolworths has offered voluntary QR code check-in since August 2020.

A Coles spokesperson said it had asked customers check-in each time they visit a Coles supermarket by scanning the QR codes on display at the front of the store, above the sanitiser stations within the store, or at the check-outs.

If customers cannot use the QR codes or Service Victoria App, a check-in register is available at the service desk.

In response to questions at Monday’s Victorian Covid press conference Victoria’s Covid testing commander Jeroen Weimar did not say if the government planned on making supermarket check-in mandatory.

Mr Weimar said the government had stepped up its enforcement program to remind businesses of the obligations to make sure customers were doing the right thing.

“I'm delighted that organisations like Coles and Woolies have also adopted that on a voluntary basis and they’re encouraging people to do it — the more data we get the better.”

Mr Weimar said QR check-ins were compulsory “in the vast majority of settings we’re concerned about it”.

“None of us wants to go in heavy handed and say, ‘You must do this’, none of us wants to crack down on business, because business is doing it tough at the moment.

“None of us wants to put additional burdens on businesses that are disproportionate to what is going on.”