Coronavirus Australia: Supermarkets consider new purchasing limits

Major supermarkets are considering new purchasing limits on food amid fears Victoria’s stage four lockdown could cause mass food shortages.

A major supermarket is warning about food shortages triggering panic buying across Australia and shoppers could soon face renewed purchasing restrictions amid fears Victoria’s stage four lockdown will severely disrupt supply chains.

One of the nation’s biggest supermarket operators has issued a warning to Prime Minister Scott Morrison through the Supermarkets Taskforce, a group of retailers who joined together to manage food shortages as a result of the pandemic.

According to The Australian, the COVID-19 Commission advisory board has been urged to take it up with the Prime Minister amid concerns retailers interstate have been blindsided by the scale of the Victorian shutdown, and shortages of meat and other good could flow through to other states.

Buying limits are also expected to be on the agenda when the Supermarkets Taskforce – made up of Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and Metcash – meets again today.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said today that Sydney was now being “tested” by the harsh lockdown in Melbourne which was likely to have flow on effects.

“I think a lot of our food supplies do emanate from Victoria, but, again, there’s a degree of each government having to be fleet-of-foot, if you like, and trying to respond to whatever problems come up,” he said on ABC News Breakfast this morning.

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Panic buying has emptied shelves across Australia.

“So in regard to our food supply, we’re now being tested on that, but we’ll find ways around it. The governments around the country will find ways around it. We’ll work together to make sure food supplies still get through.”

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews has allowed the majority of meatworks, seafood processing facilities and fruit and vegetable wholesalers to remain open but at a reduced capacity that will impact supply.

Meatworks in particular have been the site of multiple COVID-19 outbreaks as they have been across the world.

“It is a proportionate response to the risk that that industry poses,” Mr Andrews said on Monday.

“I can’t guarantee that every single product at exactly the volumes that you might like to buy will be there, but there will be enough for people to get what they need, not necessarily what they want, but what they need,” he said.

The Australian Meat Industry Council has raised concerns that any reduction in operations will naturally flow through to suppliers.

“Overall it would move towards a 30 per cent reduction, give or take, in supply chain production, which would in turn lead to a reduction of saleable meat within the Victorian community, as well as a reduction in the opportunity for product to also be exported around the world,” meat industry council chief executive Patrick Hutchinson said.