The executive director of Waitrose has attacked panic buyers saying that their actions inevitably mean someone else will go without.
Panic buying across the United Kingdom has restarted amid fears of a second wave of coronavirus and another lockdown with customers reporting queuing for 20 minutes to enter shops before similar further delays at checkouts.
And online customers found it near impossible to get delivery slots from Asda, Morrison, Ocado, Sainsbury’s and Tesco and some didn’t have any free slots for up to two weeks.
Restrictions on things which disappeared most quickly during the country’s first lockdown, such as flour and eggs, have been put in place. However, shops have insisted that empty shelves once supplied with toilet paper and pasta will be quickly replenished.
One disgruntled customer wrote on Twitter: ‘Brilliant job @Morrisons Thamesmead. No queues outside the store.
But David Dowles added that aisles were crammed inside – there was no social distancing, with queues 40 deep at the tills. The place was mobbed and still, people were being allowed to come in.
The executive director of Waitrose, James Bailey, told a news outlet that there was enough food to go round, but he added that if one person supplies their house with all the packs of pasta they can get their hands on, it inevitably means somebody else will go without and they could be the most vulnerable or key workers.
It came after Tesco became the latest supermarket to impose rationing on food and household goods, but in a bid to sidestep bulk buying which left shop shelves across the United Kingdom nearly bare in March, the supermarket colossus will limit items such as flour, dried pasta, toilet roll and antibacterial wipes to three per customer.
It comes after Morrisons on Thursday announced rationing would be introduced on specific items in its stores up and down the country and the restrictions came as supermarket chiefs looked to sidestep an over repeat of stockpiling hysteria seen in stores at the beginning of the pandemic in March.
Images from supermarkets across the United Kingdom have already shown empty or rapidly emptying toilet roll racks, just days before the Government announced tighter constraints in a bid to stave off a second coronavirus wave.
More than a quarter of the UK population are living under additional coronavirus constraints with new measures on socialising coming into force in regions of the country, with a prohibition on households socialising in each other’s homes, which came into effect at midnight on Saturday in Wigan, Stockport, Blackpool and Leeds – Cardiff and Swansea locked down from 6 pm on Friday, taking the number of people under more stringent rules to 17 million.
So, here we go again. We should have had the opportunity to reflect, act as a community and care for each other, but still, the selfish stupidity comes to the forefront and no lessons have been learnt, and it does make you wonder if humankind does actually deserve to survive.
Of course, supermarkets will be making millions, but really there’s no need to panic buy and we should all quit being ridiculous – what is everyone panicking for, the world’s not coming to an end.
Some people are greedy entitled imbeciles and this country is a disgrace and it seems that people just can’t share and don’t care about other people’s lives and it’s a very hostile place to live in.
However, some people do get carried away, but it’s no wonder when there’s so much doom and gloom reporting by media outlets and they need to take some responsibility for that.
